The Culture War - Tim Pool - U.S. Says NUKING IRAN Is The Only Option, Should The US Intervene？ w⧸ Karys Rhea & Will Thibeau

00:00:00.000 Shocking reporting has just come out.

00:00:11.000 First, the Goni reported the White House was not considering a nuclear strike on Iran.

00:00:16.000 However, according to Fox News, officials have said they have not ruled out using a

00:00:20.240 nuke and that all options are on the table.

00:00:22.680 According to the Daily Mail, Trump was briefed that the only way to destroy the Iran nuclear

00:00:27.780 facilities at Fordow would be to soften the ground with bunker busters and then drop

00:00:31.880 a nuke to which Trump has reportedly said, yeah, we shouldn't do that.

00:00:36.900 So the assumptions are now that the reason Trump is saying he will wait and make a decision

00:00:41.120 within two weeks.

00:00:42.460 The reason why he's meeting with Steve Bannon and calling Tucker Carlson is that, one, it

00:00:47.280 may be a big ask that we nuke Iran, but actually pull back and say, you know what, we can do 0.84

00:00:51.980 this with humans with boots on the ground.

00:00:54.980 But the reality is we just don't know for sure.

00:00:57.320 All we can do is sit back and wait and probably debate amongst ourselves as to what should

00:01:01.760 be done and what is currently going on.

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00:02:25.700 We got a couple people here to join us in this debate.

00:02:28.080 Ma'am, would you like to introduce yourself first?

00:02:29.920 Sure.

00:02:30.480 I'm Karis Rhea.

00:02:31.560 Thanks for having me.

00:02:33.200 I'm a producer with the Epoch Times, but nothing I say is maybe associated with them.

00:02:41.340 This is my personal opinion.

00:02:43.700 Right on.

00:02:44.840 Is that why you have that for the bugs?

00:02:48.260 No, the gavel was a gag someone gave to me, but it was like a mosquito hawk just flew

00:02:51.760 about how it's going to whack it.

00:02:52.420 Oh, yeah, because I feel like there are better ways to...

00:02:54.680 I must intervene in this conflict between the bugs.

00:02:58.000 Yeah, and sir, who might you be?

00:03:00.300 Yeah, I'm Will Thiebaud, Army veteran, right on defense policy, in particular for the Claremont

00:03:05.460 Institute in Washington, D.C.

00:03:07.120 Thanks for having me, Tim.

00:03:07.860 This is great.

00:03:08.340 So all in favor of nuking Iran? 0.99

00:03:10.260 Show of hands.

00:03:12.280 Nobody?

00:03:12.880 No.

00:03:13.320 Nobody wants to nuke Iran? 1.00

00:03:14.180 What do you think?

00:03:15.340 Do you think we should go into that country and remove their government or blow up their 0.90

00:03:19.580 nuclear facilities or what do we do? 0.84

00:03:21.700 Well, I think what we should do depends on what we see unfold in the next few weeks.

00:03:27.800 I think it completely depends on the success of Israel's operation.

00:03:33.640 And I think it depends on what the Iranian people choose to do once the bombs start falling

00:03:40.580 or stop falling, excuse me.

00:03:42.040 Um, so, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't pretend to be so arrogant to have the scenario

00:03:50.720 that we should absolutely commit to, regardless of how the facts on the ground change and how

00:03:57.880 the situation develops.

00:03:59.560 But are you in, are you in favor of regime change?

00:04:02.820 Depends what you mean by regime change.

00:04:04.480 Removing the Ayatollah and the structure of government from Iran?

00:04:06.980 From the top down?

00:04:07.940 America doing that?

00:04:10.320 No, I'm not in favor of that.

00:04:11.280 But you do want, like, but I don't want to say you do, but would you just want to see

00:04:16.160 that structure of governance in Iran altered and, you know, like they remove the Ayatollah

00:04:20.940 and they put something else in?

00:04:21.960 No doubt.

00:04:22.780 I mean, look, if it comes from the ground up, then why not?

00:04:26.640 I mean, if it comes from the people.

00:04:28.300 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:04:28.880 I agree.

00:04:29.300 I mean, what do you, what do you think?

00:04:31.180 This is my broader concern with the discussion.

00:04:33.920 I think there's a real risk that the United States and Israel have different desired end 0.94

00:04:39.760 states from this conflict.

00:04:41.980 President Trump has been pretty clear.

00:04:43.720 He doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

00:04:45.600 I don't get the same kind of clarity from Israel, perhaps justifiably so, on what their end state 1.00

00:04:52.660 is from this operation, whether it be to eliminate the Iranian ballistic missile program,

00:04:59.000 eliminate the nuclear threat permanently, or perhaps more broadly, regime change.

00:05:04.200 I think if the United States intervenes militarily with Israel and they have different end states,

00:05:10.780 that is a recipe for escalation, regardless of the first step the United States takes to intervene.

00:05:18.420 And so we got to figure this out.

00:05:19.840 I see a lot of people, they don't like the title that the U.S. says nuking Iran is the only option.

00:05:25.460 Let me show you the chain of events here.

00:05:26.820 We have this from Mediaite first.

00:05:28.580 White House denies Trump ruled out using a tactical nuke on Iran.

00:05:32.540 Fox's Heinrich reports, okay, well, you know, denying they ruled it out doesn't mean he wants

00:05:39.460 to do it, right?

00:05:39.980 Well, we have this from The Guardian.

00:05:42.380 Trump caution on Iran strike linked to doubts over a bunker buster bomb, officials say.

00:05:47.360 There's been numerous reports that the bunker busters don't even have the capability to

00:05:51.520 penetrate Fordow.

00:05:52.800 And the argument is Iran intentionally built a nuclear facility where they knew even U.S.

00:05:58.260 bunker busters would have a difficult time penetrating. 1.00

00:06:00.240 And then we have the ongoing live feed from the Daily Mail.

00:06:03.860 Donald Trump is believed to have backed down from military action against Iran, paving the

00:06:07.220 way for diplomatic talks, after realizing that a nuclear strike may have been the only way

00:06:11.360 to completely destroy the buried Fordow enrichment plant.

00:06:14.140 The president is said to have told defense officials it would only make sense for the U.S.

00:06:17.960 to join Israel if its bunker buster bombs are guaranteed to be able to destroy the key 0.86

00:06:22.860 enrichment site, according to people familiar with the discussions.

00:06:26.140 Officials were said to have been told the U.S. would have to soften the ground with conventional

00:06:29.820 bombs before dropping a tactical nuclear weapon from a B-2 bomber to completely destroy the

00:06:35.580 site, believed to be some 90 meters underground.

00:06:39.220 But Trump is said to have ruled out nuking Iran, insiders told The Guardian.

00:06:43.300 The possibility was said not to have been raised by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Chairman of

00:06:47.340 the Joint Sheets of Staff, General Dan Cain, during recent meetings in the Situation Room.

00:06:51.540 Fox News then reported the White House has refuted the entire Guardian report, indicating

00:06:55.580 that the use of a nuclear weapon had not yet been ruled out. The future of the region hangs in the

00:06:59.780 balance as diplomats scramble to find another solution. There's been an ongoing conversation

00:07:03.900 about whether or not the bunker busters will even work. Jack Posobiec went into great detail

00:07:08.400 on the battle, I believe it's called the BDA, the Battle Damage Assessment, and that the bunker

00:07:13.420 busters are lower yield bombs but designed to penetrate. So they'll break through the concrete

00:07:18.700 before detonating, in which case, I believe it's a 90 meter, it's about 300 feet, you would need

00:07:24.800 multiple concurrent strikes of bunker busters to hit it. Well, and they'd have to hit in the same

00:07:30.380 exact spot. In the crater, right? A bunker buster only penetrates to 200 feet before it can explode.

00:07:37.260 So at least two. Right, you need at least two. And they're precise, but it poses, I think,

00:07:43.440 part of the conundrum that many who are hoping President Trump reconsiders military action,

00:07:49.400 because if we take a strike at the Fordo nuclear facility, for example, and it doesn't work,

00:07:55.400 we have still initiated combat action, we've initiated physical participation, offensive war

00:08:00.960 against Iran that makes the 40,000 Americans in the region and all our military assets a target,

00:08:07.300 a frankly legitimate target for Iranian retaliation. And we've done all that without

00:08:12.340 disabling their primary nuclear facility. There's not, there's not 40,000 people right now. I mean,

00:08:18.920 Trump has already, has already started removing unnecessary troops. He took out all the planes

00:08:25.900 at Al-Udeid. He, I don't think they're all gone. I mean, there are, he had the ships leave the

00:08:30.920 harbor. There are over a thousand American soldiers in Syria, 4,000, I think still in Iraq. So, you know,

00:08:37.940 whether it's 40,000 or 4,000, there's 40,000 on any given day in the region. But what I'm saying

00:08:47.840 is that Trump has already removed, we don't know how many, but he's already started evacuating

00:08:53.880 some of those troops. And to be fair, that does include, uh, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt,

00:09:00.520 Bahrain, Bahrain, Qatar, all, all within range of. Yeah. But you think the, you think Iran's going 0.98

00:09:06.960 to start bombing Qatar? No, but I, but this is my point. We don't know what happens in the event 0.61

00:09:13.060 of an escalation. I, I, I deployed to Iraq twice and what our kind of main station was at a base in

00:09:20.100 Northern Iraq where on a clear day I could see the mountains of Northwest Iran. And so the, and there,

00:09:25.760 there, again, there are thousands of American soldiers within that range. That's well within

00:09:30.860 ballistic missile range, probably wouldn't even take a ballistic missile. Um, and so my point is,

00:09:35.460 okay, it's perhaps it's not 40,000 Americans directly at risk of retaliation, but how, how many

00:09:40.320 is too many? Sure. And that's, uh, something to consider. Sure. I, I would, I would push back on this

00:09:46.360 idea that any, that Iran, just because they are a very large and mountainous country and, you know,

00:09:55.100 they have a very sophisticated population, highly educated, civilized, that they are anything other

00:10:01.040 than a paper tiger, which we have seen again and again. But then why would the United States need

00:10:06.620 to get involved? They can't even, they can't even look as long as Israel has the skies right now, 0.89

00:10:12.780 like, and they are, they can't even get a plane off the ground except like the three that they've,

00:10:18.360 they've managed to, to, to get off the ground, to flee the area. You think that America cannot defend

00:10:23.920 itself against, uh, uh, an air attack from Iran? I mean, this, to me, that's just so ridiculous. 0.97

00:10:31.500 Like the air superior superiority of America is just, it's astronomically more than what Iran is. 1.00

00:10:39.520 Do you understand the backwards logic here? You're saying that Iran is a paper tiger. So America need 1.00

00:10:45.600 not fear retaliation. But at the same time, they are such a formidable military threat that Israel 0.97

00:10:53.600 needs our offensive military assistance in order to defeat the threat that Iran poses in the region. 1.00

00:11:00.360 There's multiple things there. Not, not all of those things I said, but, um, I'm just saying

00:11:06.580 that how threatening Iran actually is has to be part of the conversation. It can't just be like,

00:11:12.720 will they retaliate or not? Of course they're going to retaliate. But what has to be involved in the

00:11:16.640 conversation is their capabilities. And the best way to measure that is to look at past, um, actions

00:11:23.300 that they have taken, like the October, you know, 2024 ballistic missile attack, even seeing how

00:11:28.100 they've just responded in the last like seven days to Israel. I mean, yes, of course they, they've

00:11:33.220 gotten, they've caused a lot of damage throughout Israel. Yes, there have been 400, 450 missiles that

00:11:38.460 have gone through and like, you know, a thousand drones that they shot and none of which reached

00:11:42.760 Israeli airspace, but they, none of the drones did, you're saying? None of the drones did. Yeah.

00:11:47.720 But, but these ballistic missiles, the amount that they have been sending have been drastically

00:11:52.960 decreasing with each day. Why do you think that is? We don't know for sure, but you're asking why

00:11:59.820 is Iran decreasing the amount of missiles that it's firing? Yeah. It's because they either don't have

00:12:03.680 enough missiles. So they're trying to conserve them. Israel estimates they have like a thousand or

00:12:07.340 something like that, or it's because they can't get them off the ground because they're,

00:12:11.120 they don't have enough launchers. That's one of the arguments that's been made is that Iran's

00:12:17.940 intentionally using lower yield rockets so that they can burn out the Israeli interceptors before

00:12:24.000 launching an actual salvo of destructive ballistic missiles mid range. The Wall Street Journal reported

00:12:30.680 today that Israel is, has depleted almost 60% of their air defense assets. It's easier to shoot a 0.98

00:12:36.720 missile than it is to shoot down a missile. And so any decision based on our expectations of Iranian,

00:12:44.600 the Iranian missile supply, I think is, is hubristic. Not, not, not just that, sorry to interrupt,

00:12:50.960 but China just flew three cargo ship, cargo planes into Iran. Yeah. But we have, that could be

00:12:56.160 humanitarian for all we know. We have no idea what's in there. And until anybody has any evidence

00:13:00.940 in terms of what those planes contained, then I'm not going to, I'm not going to think that China

00:13:05.740 is going to come to Iran's rescue. I mean, China has been laying low. They've already like

00:13:10.880 implied that they want nothing to do with it. That's, that's not material to the point that's

00:13:14.300 being made in that we are wondering why Iran hasn't, hasn't launched a larger barrage of higher

00:13:20.180 yield mid range missiles. And the things to consider tactically would be China's shipping something

00:13:25.740 and we don't know what that is. That's a concern. If, if Iran is launching these mid range, lower

00:13:31.700 yield missiles, this, the strategy is fairly obvious. I'm a layman, you know, and just watching

00:13:36.940 Fox news. And we had an interview with a guy on the show the other day. They're saying, well,

00:13:40.760 obviously no one's going to launch their stronger warheads knowing Israel's loaded with interceptors,

00:13:46.040 but interceptors are very expensive. So likely what Iran's going to do is they're going to choose 0.96

00:13:50.080 a medium yield so they can save the more powerful rockets, burn down some of the interceptors,

00:13:55.320 hope they penetrate that air defense with some strikes that actually will freak people out.

00:14:01.420 They don't want to go, this is what we were told by a secure, an expert in the region.

00:14:05.260 They don't want to use low yield because when they do break through, there won't be enough damage

00:14:09.620 and people will just be like, oh, this is, this is weak. And then, you know, Israel might restrain

00:14:14.860 themselves on how many interceptors they begin using. But if a couple breakthrough and they're strong

00:14:18.500 enough and the, and the impacts are, and they've been pretty devastating, Israel's going to ramp up 0.93

00:14:22.740 its interceptors concerned about the strength of these rockets. Then once Israel depletes the

00:14:27.140 majority of its rockets, Iran will launch a full salvo of high yield, mid range ballistic missiles

00:14:31.580 to actually start causing massive damage in urban areas. Well, to my mind, the burden of proof should

00:14:39.220 be on those who want U.S. military intervention in some form or fashion. I think there's a reasonable 0.82

00:14:46.180 chain of events that would lead to even a limited strike of a bunker buster, let's say, or two

00:14:52.880 bunker busters, precipitating a broader engagement because Iran would, I think, necessarily retaliate 1.00

00:14:59.560 and the United States would necessarily retaliate in the event that Americans are killed or American

00:15:05.420 assets are threatened. And then you have a path towards regime change, whether or not the United

00:15:11.500 States wanted to march down that path in the first place. There is, you know, and to my mind, that's why

00:15:18.400 I don't find the helpful distinction between, you know, this chain of, oh, well, we should support Israel

00:15:24.100 because it's their fight. Oh, well, let's help them with limited strikes. And now it is...

00:15:28.900 It's not their fight. Wait, what? No. Are you kidding?

00:15:33.140 Is it not Israel's fight? 0.73

00:15:34.240 Well, of course. But are you saying it's not America's fight?

00:15:36.860 Wait. Is it America's fight?

00:15:39.600 I mean, factually, it's not our fight right now.

00:15:41.220 I would disagree with that.

00:15:43.780 We are not participating.

00:15:44.840 Why would you disagree?

00:15:46.440 Well, because as the IRGC has stated many times, death to America has not merely been a slogan or a

00:15:56.900 chant, but a governing doctrine that since 1979, we have seen them carry out from the first moment

00:16:04.500 that they took our hostage, that they took our diplomats and our Marines hostages for 444 days

00:16:10.640 and the IRGC bragged about it. Then going to the 80s with the, you know, the 241 servicemen that they killed

00:16:19.200 in the Beirut barracks bombing the year after that when they mutilated and tortured CIA station chief

00:16:27.800 William Buckley, not the National Security guy, and then William Higgins.

00:16:33.680 They're not the good guys.

00:16:34.540 Okay, but that's just scratching the surface. Then let's go. That's just what they've done to us in the region,

00:16:41.580 in the Middle East. Then let's go to the Western Hemisphere and look at what they've been doing in Latin America.

00:16:48.240 Look at them sending UAVs to Venezuela. Look at them, the reports that they've been trying to dig underground tunnels

00:16:54.740 from Mexico into the United States like they did in Syria and Lebanon and Gaza. Look at the fact that 0.85

00:17:02.680 they have dozens, if not hundreds, of sleeper cells here in America, which if you read like Todd Benzman's work

00:17:08.480 or listen to him, he has documented this extensively. There's nobody who's done better fieldwork on this

00:17:13.160 than Todd Benzman. And the fact that they essentially have been wreaking havoc on the region of Latin America 0.55

00:17:21.220 strictly so that they can position themselves in a region that they know is, they have turned hostile

00:17:28.560 to the United States. I mean, there's a reason why they're working with the Mexican drug cartels

00:17:33.040 and the Colombian drug cartels.

00:17:34.460 If that threat is as existential and absolute as you present, then I think it begs returning to the original

00:17:43.280 question of if regime change should be the goal of America. That's why I find it almost a bit

00:17:50.060 disingenuous to say there is such an option as a limited strike, because you just went through

00:17:56.140 decades of evidence that paints Iran, even though you said they're a paper tiger, as a nation that

00:18:02.820 could supposedly threaten the continental United States. So let me clarify.

00:18:07.400 So to me, it's like, which is Iran this paper tiger that we must confront in order to preserve 1.00

00:18:13.540 the interests of the American people? Or are they a paper tiger that we can handle with a few bunker

00:18:20.840 busters and the Israelis doing the rest? 0.99

00:18:22.440 Sure. Okay, well, two things. Instead of presuming what my views are, feel free to ask. But second of

00:18:29.360 all, what I mean by Iran is a paper tiger is precisely what makes them such a threat in these realms that I 1.00

00:18:37.640 said. They're not going to be necessarily as big, I don't believe, but I could be wrong, a military

00:18:44.400 threat because of, like I said, their past actions and the fact that I don't believe that they have the

00:18:50.640 military capacity to essentially go up against the United States. But that is precisely why they use

00:18:58.660 proxies. That is precisely why they are trying to essentially co-opt other governments and regimes

00:19:07.620 and brainwash them and support them so that they can do Iran's dirty work because Iran does not have the 0.99

00:19:14.960 capacity to do it by themselves.

00:19:16.720 I honestly don't know which governments they're co-opting. I'm sure they're subversive.

00:19:22.480 Bolivia?

00:19:23.980 Yeah, so let's confront the co-option of the Bolivian government.

00:19:28.380 I agree. We've got to invade China. 0.98

00:19:32.280 China's been doing it tenfold. 0.75

00:19:33.740 Well, there's no limiting principle to this theory, right? Because North Korea, 0.97

00:19:37.620 has been talking about wiping off America from the face of the earth for many decades. And they

00:19:44.660 also have nuclear weapons now, a few dozen perhaps.

00:19:47.720 There's a big difference. And nobody wants to say it.

00:19:51.500 China's got nukes.

00:19:52.440 There's a big difference between China and North Korea and Iran. Do you know what it is? It's one 0.96

00:19:57.240 word.

00:19:57.860 Islam, perhaps?

00:19:59.280 There you go.

00:19:59.800 So communism is not a concern? 0.85

00:20:04.180 Communism, as evil as it is, they're atheists, man. They have some sort of sobering idea that makes

00:20:12.720 them understand the risks that their country is going to get nuked to hell. Why do you think the

00:20:17.480 Soviet, why do you think that, you know, mutually assured destruction worked in the Cold War? It was 0.91

00:20:22.860 because the Soviet Union understood the actual implications of a nuclear world. Iran are,

00:20:32.180 these people are, this is the thing that, like, no, this is actually really the thing that the

00:20:39.100 non-interventionists don't want, non-interventionists don't want to, like, really dig into. And I would

00:20:45.260 love to have that conversation with them.

00:20:48.500 So given this threat, real quick.

00:20:50.680 The fact that this regime is a Shiite supremacist, like, you know, they are fanatical.

00:21:01.880 You're saying that Iran is not a rational actor. That's the phrase I believe that defines, we define

00:21:07.340 countries as rational actors or, this was, this was, Mike Duran was talking to us.

00:21:10.740 When we do threat assessment, we say, is this nation a rational actor? Meaning,

00:21:16.280 would they fear being wiped off the map? And the argument is that Iran could go either way.

00:21:20.260 A hundred percent. That is what I'm saying. Because Iran actually really is trying to, 0.96

00:21:25.100 like, resurrect the, like, 600, you know, AD, you know, battle of Karbala or whatever it's called,

00:21:31.940 right, to essentially usher in the 12th Shia imam or whatever. Like, this, this is part of their

00:21:39.020 entire political revolutionary doctrine. You cannot separate the religious fundamentalism

00:21:47.280 from any of their political or military decisions. You just can't.

00:21:52.020 So then what is it worth for America to, to end this threat? If, if, if this threat that you just

00:21:59.940 laid out exists, what is the cost that Americans should be willing to pay to eliminate the threat?

00:22:07.160 Uh, the cost in terms of money or the cost in terms of, all of it, like blood and treasure,

00:22:14.520 blood, blood treasure. Yeah. Bandwidth. I mean, what should we do? If, if this threat is so all

00:22:21.160 consuming, what should we do depends on what happens in the next four days. Now I can tell

00:22:26.420 you possible things that could happen. And then I could tell you what I think we should do if each

00:22:30.760 of those things happen. So I don't have like, like, do I think, like you said at the beginning

00:22:35.780 of this conversation, does anybody want, um, America to nuke Iran? Of course I don't want

00:22:40.860 America to nuke Iran, but look, if people want to call me like a war hawk or a warmonger or a neocon, 0.54

00:22:47.820 go right ahead. But I do not have any problem saying that depending on how the situation escalates,

00:22:56.240 that I would not take that off of the table. Nuking Iran. Yeah. I mean, to be, to be fair, 1.00

00:23:02.940 I mean, the option of nuking anybody is always on the table. And that's why I think Trump denied it.

00:23:07.140 I think the possibility, the probability of Trump nuking Iran is 0%. But you'd be insane to be like,

00:23:12.640 we will never nuke anybody no matter what. That's dumb. Like if Iran actually said, you know what, 1.00

00:23:17.680 we've already enriched uranium, we've got dirty bombs, we're dispatching them. And we're nuclear war is 0.83

00:23:21.820 now the U S is going to retaliate and say, okay, then we're taking out Fordo right now by whatever

00:23:26.260 means necessary. And I think even Tucker was saying that if they are actively trying to kill Trump,

00:23:31.220 then he would be in favor of bombing the hell out of their country. I know if yeah, 0.92

00:23:34.900 Farhad Shaqari doesn't exist. Yeah. I did find it funny that Iran has publicly stated they want to 1.00

00:23:41.380 kill Trump. Well, not only that, there has been, there have been, there have been at least three

00:23:46.580 indictments. The guy, the guy who ordered the first of all, that was based off of a phone

00:23:54.000 interview with a guy who is in Iran, who's in Iran, who used to be in our prisons, who was,

00:23:59.460 who was in American prisons. Right. But he's in Iran. He's not now he's in Iran. And we don't,

00:24:03.940 he told us that the IRGC told him to go kill Trump. Well, not just Trump, other people as well. 0.90

00:24:09.380 Right. But there's not, and I guess that's a bad thing. And he was the second, he was the second,

00:24:15.060 he was the second person that they linked to an assassination attempt on Trump. And I mean,

00:24:20.100 it's so ridiculous that, that this is considered like a hypothetical to me. I mean, like, this is so, 0.94

00:24:25.880 because if you look at what the IRGC has done in the rest of the world, look at what they've done in

00:24:31.700 the UK. Look at, I mean, they, their assassination attempts and espionage, this is like part and parcel.

00:24:39.840 Oh my God. Iran is like, I mean, the, the, the way that Iran has infiltrated the UK and has made 1.00

00:24:47.440 that has, has, I mean, you can even look at like David Lammy's like recent comments on them. They

00:24:51.640 are a like level four, like emergency threat in terms of, in terms of, of, of how they are trying

00:24:58.920 to destroy that country from within. Well, but okay. If you, if you remove the IRGC and all of their 0.98

00:25:04.440 influence from the UK, the UK would still have a lot of problems from the world migration. 0.99

00:25:09.400 A hundred percent. I think, but we need to return to the original question.

00:25:13.440 And this is why I'm, I'm not necessarily convinced by the arguments to, uh, to warrant the United

00:25:19.680 States taking military action to help Israel. Because if, if it's true that all they need is 0.88

00:25:24.400 a few bombs dropped on Fordow, uh, but that this threat is so vast and, and multidimensional,

00:25:31.600 then, then that's the least we should do. And, and that's also irrelevant to this threat,

00:25:37.720 this extensive threat. So then, but then I think to be honest, I'd love to respond to that.

00:25:42.200 Well, look, can I show this real quick? This is from Iran international 2023 IRGC commando

00:25:48.000 repeats threat to kill Trump and Pompeo. I remember this, this, this story. Uh, it was really big

00:25:52.980 after the killing of Soleimani, Iran was like, we will get revenge. We will kill Trump. I thought 0.99

00:25:56.800 this was, you know, fairly common. They say that, um, Amir Ali Hadja Zadeh, the head of

00:26:02.460 the revolutionary guards, aerospace force spoke of Iran's often repeated threat to avenge

00:26:06.160 the killing of Qasem Soleimani, Tehran's, uh, Tehran's top military intelligence operator

00:26:10.520 in the Middle East saying, we are looking, uh, he went on to give a threat that he wanted

00:26:13.640 to kill Trump. And then you just pull up this guy's Wikipedia page and he died on the 13th.

00:26:18.200 You know how?

00:26:19.000 He was killed in those strikes.

00:26:19.860 You know how? Yeah. He was killed. Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:23.140 Israeli airstrike in June of 2025. So, uh, I thought this was, you know, this is, this

00:26:30.960 is not a statement of what the U S should or should not do, but the argument that Iran's

00:26:35.780 top officials were like, we will have revenge for the killing of Soleimani. I thought was

00:26:38.500 fairly common knowledge.

00:26:39.360 And I, and I really, I really don't, I really think that if you take Islam out of the equation, 0.64

00:26:44.700 then we would be having an entirely different conversation. And I think that's the conversation

00:26:50.140 that I see most people having. And so Karis, are you willing to accept a diplomatic solution

00:26:56.760 that to this conflict that leaves that many in charge of the country?

00:27:01.420 Um, a hundred percent. However, I believe that if that diplomatic solution allows for any sort

00:27:13.960 of future, like in 20 years, if Iran can develop another bomb, which is a very real possibility 0.95

00:27:20.820 with a diplomatic solution, then we're just, then we're just going to do it. If they are

00:27:25.240 able to enrich uranium to 60% purity, you know, at the 90% threshold for weapons grade material

00:27:31.940 and have 400 kilograms of, of, of, um, you know, of uranium again, then to me, I think

00:27:40.100 that just shows that we were naive. However, however, if that doesn't happen, then yes,

00:27:46.960 a diplomatic solution is a hundred percent the right way to go. It just depends how much

00:27:52.000 you can, you are prepared to, to verify and to, um, and to essentially keep your guard up.

00:27:59.940 But I want to just address a point you made about, you know, uh, before, which is a really

00:28:05.500 good point that if they're already such a threat, like, um, uh, you were saying, I can't

00:28:13.280 even remember the point you were making, but in response, I wanted to say that you were

00:28:18.000 actually, if Iran is such a threat, then it doesn't make it make sense to make a deal or 0.97

00:28:22.720 to do limited airstrikes. It makes sense to do whatever it takes to nuke them or to facilitate

00:28:28.660 a regime change.

00:28:29.240 And I think that's exactly why I think that should also be on the table. I think that all

00:28:32.260 those solutions should be on the table. Look, if Iran actually surrenders, not as ready to

00:28:39.100 negotiate, not as ready to, you know, um, pause their nuclear program and shut the doors,

00:28:47.040 actual surrender, give up their thousands of centrifuges. Okay. Destroy them, destroy their,

00:28:54.780 their, their centrifuge. What? 1.00

00:28:56.260 How would you know if they did?

00:28:57.480 Well, they could, it would have to be overseen by the IAEA or,

00:29:00.580 so, so you're, you're, you're, you're saying like foreign security forces in some capacity

00:29:05.980 would need to physically enter Iran and then oversee the actions that they're taking.

00:29:11.320 Yeah, that's what the IAEA does.

00:29:13.000 What if they have secret facilities no one knows about?

00:29:15.220 Well, that's a very real possibility. And that's why, um, uh, they essentially need to

00:29:21.500 have a level of, um, of transparency that to me is very, very, very difficult to get, which

00:29:29.400 makes the diplomatic solution very difficult to achieve. They might have centrifuges in other

00:29:35.220 places, but I mean, we know that they, I mean, the whole reason they, they, that Fordo is, is 300

00:29:42.220 feet underground is precisely because it was covert and it was in violation of the, of the, um, the

00:29:48.760 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, treaty, which the IAEA found.

00:29:52.000 And because they, they didn't, and they don't want to get bombed by, they wanted to specifically

00:29:55.640 They wanted to specifically, exactly. It was, it was literally because they knew about bunker

00:29:58.860 busters and they said, we have to build it in such a, in such a way that the U.S. cannot

00:30:01.880 do anything about it.

00:30:02.700 We destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1991 because they were above ground, which was 0.66

00:30:07.640 the impetus for them to build Fordo 300 feet under the earth.

00:30:11.180 Yeah, exactly. There was deep investigation, there was, there was a, there was a deep investigation

00:30:15.500 into their nuclear program. Of course, of course they would want to do it in secret because

00:30:19.800 they want to have a nuclear bomb.

00:30:21.800 What's the threat of Iran having a nuclear bomb?

00:30:24.560 Uh, the threat to the world, the threat to America, the threat to Israel. I mean, well, 1.00

00:30:29.920 first of all, talk about like, if we're talking about like, uh, you know, blood and treasure,

00:30:38.200 right. And the cost that that would, that a nuclear Iran would like the actual dollar 0.78

00:30:44.960 cost of a nuclear Iran on America, it is, I mean, I haven't done the calculations. 0.98

00:30:50.020 But why? Like, what's going to happen?

00:30:52.140 Maritime routes, transcontinental infrastructure, you try to get, you try to get insurance, you

00:30:58.280 try to get insurance and risk models after there is a nuclear Iran in the region. Are 0.67

00:31:03.000 you kidding me?

00:31:03.720 But why? What are you saying they're going to do?

00:31:05.500 Because the entire, well, first of all, there's going to be an arms race. I mean,

00:31:08.400 they've said it. Saudi Arabia has said it.

00:31:10.720 Pakistan's got it. 1.00

00:31:11.260 Okay. The UAE has, has said it. I understand. But so this increases the cost of things like

00:31:17.340 insurance and the region, right? When, when you're doing, when you create, um, you know,

00:31:22.180 a risk model models, right? For activities.

00:31:26.180 Okay. I just gotta, I just gotta, are you saying Iran is going to nuke people?

00:31:30.680 Oh, well, a hundred percent. Well, you just said, are they going to, you said you didn't

00:31:34.220 care about Israel? So I was a, no, I said, I said, I don't care about the world. I only 0.96

00:31:37.940 care about Israel. That was a joke. 0.88

00:31:39.160 Oh, I thought you said I don't care about Israel.

00:31:40.480 No, you said he only cares about Israel.

00:31:42.580 I mean, do I believe they're going to nuke Israel? A hundred percent. But look, I'm trying 1.00

00:31:46.420 to, that's the question because everybody.

00:31:48.280 Do I believe that? I believe a hundred percent they will. Because I believe when somebody

00:31:51.180 says they want to kill you, oh, like look at like North Korea, like this is, this

00:31:54.820 is a huge, this is a perfect example. Okay. Does North Korea, does North Korea have nuclear 0.96

00:32:00.600 weapons? Of course they do. Is North Korea an ally of Iran and an enemy of America and 0.69

00:32:05.100 an ally of China and, and, and, and Venezuela and all of those rogue stakes? Yes, of course.

00:32:09.840 But again, North Korea, it does not have a, a, a, a, um, an annihilationist, um, dominant,

00:32:19.640 like, uh, uh, uh, um, expansionist goal that Iran has. North Korea wants America destroyed.

00:32:28.080 You don't think North Korea wants to own the entire Korean peninsula? I think they want to 0.99

00:32:31.200 own the peninsula. I think that's as far as it goes. Well, so then why haven't, I actually,

00:32:35.640 if you have regional and bit, if you have regional ambitions, you also have to know your, um, know

00:32:41.780 your own capability. Right. And so we can kind of trust North Korea to know that, but because

00:32:47.500 Iran has all of these proxies and because that's coupled with these, these, um, dogmat, dogmatic 0.91

00:32:54.320 religiously fundamentalist ambitions, they actually, um, believe that they can carry out a complete

00:33:02.980 restructuring of not just the region, but the entire world. I mean, we're talking about, you

00:33:07.720 know, over a billion, over a billion Muslims. And even if like 10% of that are, are, are, are a group

00:33:15.060 that is sympathetic to any sort of like Islamist way of life. Can you be a little bit more, I understand

00:33:21.780 talking about more than the population of America here. I think Iran is an adversary and I don't think

00:33:28.920 they are some people that we should coddle, but to say that, you know, letting, and I also don't

00:33:37.180 think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. I don't think that's a good thing to hope for or to, you

00:33:41.340 know, to allow, but I think we should be realistic and concrete about the details in the actions that

00:33:49.520 would be required to stop such a future. In my mind, there are two options to stop Iran from 0.99

00:33:58.380 having a nuclear weapon. One is diplomacy and a deal. We, there was good reporting before the war

00:34:05.880 started that Iran was willing to accept American investigators on the ground, which was something

00:34:11.460 that president Obama didn't secure. So a deal that allows some sort of verification of their nuclear

00:34:17.720 regime, all the caveats about how difficult that might be apply, or it is an all out ground

00:34:24.680 invasion that necessitates the, the change from the regime that you expertly point out is, so is

00:34:33.520 threatening America across the world. Right. So, so you're saying war or appeasement, there's nothing

00:34:37.960 in between. I said diplomacy, a diplomatic solution. But you know, but you know, I mean, don't be naive.

00:34:44.420 I know you're not naive. You know, that all, all Iran knows how to do is to cheat and to steal. 1.00

00:34:51.280 It was there any intelligence assessment around the world that said that they had a nuclear weapon

00:34:57.380 before Israel started their airstrikes? You mean like in 2003, when the IAEA came out with their huge

00:35:05.120 report and discovered that like, since like 1980, or since like the 1980s, at some point, Iran had a

00:35:13.680 completely covert, like secret nuclear weapons program and was in complete violation of the

00:35:19.520 treaty that they had signed on to? Of course. And so I think the, a way to end that is a diplomatic

00:35:26.040 solution that provides genuine transparency, right? Maybe we literally watched them cement, close the

00:35:32.680 doors to Fordeaux. I don't think that's possible. But they said, Iran said- Then we got to go to war.

00:35:37.700 But the Ayatollah, okay. There you just said it. Because the Ayatollahs said, they said over again,

00:35:44.420 over and over again, if you read the news, they said, we are not going to submit to Trump's terms

00:35:51.340 for this deal. The, the, the term, Trump has, Trump has his head on his shoulders. He understands

00:35:59.920 exactly what Iran would need to do in order for them not to be a nuclear threat to America. But

00:36:08.980 those, those things that need to happen, Iran will not agree to. They said it over and over again. So

00:36:17.560 what's wrong with Trump saying to Iran, okay, you have 60 deals, you have 60 days to try to make a deal.

00:36:25.180 And if you do not come up with a diplomatic solution that essentially satisfies our requirements,

00:36:34.560 then all bets are off. I'm, I'm pretty sure that if we, if we invade, we'll be greeted as liberators.

00:36:42.600 This is, I mean, this is, this is, I think underlies a point about the debate. We're told that there is

00:36:48.320 this limited option where we can take some precise action, um, against a regime that is also a paper

00:36:57.380 tiger and an existential threat to humanity at the same time. Uh, and then somehow avoid further

00:37:06.520 entanglement, further military action. And that is, again, I think it's, it's not, I don't, when I say

00:37:14.460 it's not being honest, I'm not, I'm not saying deliberately a deliberate lie, but I think it,

00:37:18.920 it leaves unsaid and undiscussed the real eventualities of what happens when we think that we

00:37:25.000 can take quick, decisive military action in the Middle East to achieve policy outcomes that are

00:37:31.720 actually a lot, uh, more slippery than we care to admit.

00:37:36.800 I think what's happening is, is actually pretty obvious. The United States for a long time now would

00:37:40.760 do whatever it takes to remove the Iranian government and they want regime change. The

00:37:45.460 problem, you got about 90 million people there and many of them have deeply fundamentalistic

00:37:50.760 Islamist worldview that is actually kept in check by the current regime. Meaning if you remove the 0.98

00:37:56.760 existing government right now, you have 10 million people maybe who are willing to do, I'll put it this

00:38:03.560 way. Probably one of the biggest civil wars we've seen in hundreds of years, if not ever, because

00:38:07.600 population expansion. And then you're going to have these people spreading out into various other

00:38:12.540 regions and you may end up with the biggest ISIS problem we've ever seen. So this is the US 0.79

00:38:18.580 government assessment, basically, that they want the Ayatollah to, to heal. They want to bring him to

00:38:22.800 heal. So he keeps all those extremist forces in check, but also isn't developing a nuke.

00:38:27.600 It's also the assessment of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Sunni Muslim world.

00:38:33.060 And I understand, but I, I, I think the analogy that like, well, okay, well, three things. First

00:38:39.160 of all, I just have to say, well, I explained why I called them a paper tiger and why they're also a

00:38:46.320 threat. And doesn't that make sense? Doesn't it make sense to say that their military capabilities

00:38:51.880 on their own cannot overpower America's or Israel, but they work around the world through their

00:38:58.080 proxies? If they are a threat to us asymmetrically in Bolivia, then we should confront them 1.00

00:39:02.920 asymmetrically in Bolivia. It doesn't make any sense to confront them with conventional military

00:39:07.180 action in Iran. Okay. I see what you're saying. We should defeat the threat. Okay. I see what 0.96

00:39:11.560 you're saying. But they are, but they are a threat on multiple levels here. So without a nuclear weapon,

00:39:18.180 they are our number one, immediate national security threat. I mean, long-term threat, China, 1.00

00:39:25.180 a hundred percent, a hundred percent. But in terms of the immediate national security threat,

00:39:30.780 I believe Iran is number one. Okay. It's fine. Even if you don't think it's number one.

00:39:33.860 Before Iran. What? The Qatars are probably, the cartels are way above Iran. Well, Iran's working 1.00

00:39:41.540 with the cartels. So the cartels are a bigger threat to our national security immediately. No,

00:39:45.500 no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tim, I was talking about sovereign nations here. I was talking about

00:39:48.900 sovereign nations. Of course the cartels are a threat. Yeah, but we allocate national security.

00:39:53.200 Of course they're a more immediate threat to us. Of course. They're a threat to our interests in the

00:39:56.040 Middle East. Okay. But I'm talking about in terms of sovereign nations, to me, Iran is the most

00:40:01.960 immediate assets in the Middle East. No, I just explained, I just explained, I just explained how,

00:40:08.920 what they're doing in the Western hemisphere and what they're doing even in our own soil. And we're

00:40:13.080 looking at this screen right now that says that they are trying to kill, you know, Trump. Well, 0.67

00:40:18.920 this was a threat to kill him. And I do think they're trying. I think it's silly. Like, of course 0.98

00:40:23.880 they want to kill Trump. Okay. So, so it's not just in the Middle East. It's not just in the 1.00

00:40:29.320 Middle East. Does Iran own any- Not just our assets in the Middle East. The principal threat 1.00

00:40:32.600 we face Iran is in the Middle East. Like, obviously we can say that, you know, the biggest threat 1.00

00:40:36.960 China poses is our, is, is, is the South China Sea and the, and the trade agreements and the 0.74

00:40:40.760 alliances we have with the Commonwealth nations and Taiwan, et cetera, et cetera. But they engage

00:40:43.800 in cyber attacks on us as well. Obviously Iranian- They also own millions of acres of American 1.00

00:40:49.120 land. Oh, believe me. Look, I work for the Epoch Times. I, I understand the Chinese

00:40:54.520 communist threat to America. And that's why I said long-term threat, no doubt China. 0.94

00:40:59.880 The real threat that I don't, you know, the reason why I asked about whether they're going

00:41:03.480 to nuke us is because for some reason, and I don't know why, like, I just, nobody says it.

00:41:08.120 You know, I keep hearing about, you know, even Trump has been saying for 40 years,

00:41:11.560 they cannot have a nuclear weapon. And I'm like, are you saying they will nuke us? And everybody

00:41:16.840 always dances around that question because I'm like, is the answer yes or no? I think the bigger,

00:41:20.520 the bigger question is, the bigger risk is that Iran's going to give a bunch of crackpot 1.00

00:41:25.240 Islamist lunatic rebel groups, low, like low yield nuclear bombs, tactical, like, uh, like, 0.97

00:41:32.280 like dirty bombs and suitcase nukes. A hundred percent. And then you're going to see like cities 1.00

00:41:36.440 irradiated. A hundred percent, Tim. You're, you are going to see if Iran gets a, gets a bomb, 0.91

00:41:41.300 you are essentially going to see the first ever- It's not a bomb. Nuclear equipped dirt, whatever,

00:41:46.360 equipped insurgency. Like you will see insurgency, like ideologically, you know,

00:41:52.200 The real concern I have is like the Houthi rebels, uh, launching nuclear artillery, low yield stuff,

00:41:57.480 but just vaporizing a tanker in the Red Sea and then threatening the globe, like the world with, 0.58

00:42:03.720 we have, we have 10 more of these and we're not telling you where they are. And then what do we do?

00:42:08.840 Do we like, does Tom Cruise have to come in and hunt them down? I mean, and I'm not,

00:42:12.840 and I'm not advocating for war. I'm saying this is, this is the real concern that needs to be brought

00:42:16.840 up. And if you're saying the number one threat is in the Middle East, then yes, I agree with you. 1.00

00:42:21.880 It's more, but I'm just saying that we have to consider what they're also doing

00:42:26.920 in the rest of the world, in Europe and in the Western hemisphere. And I would also point out

00:42:33.160 that this idea that like, okay, cause Will, you're saying essentially the choices are a diplomatic

00:42:38.840 solution or like an all out ground invasion, but why does that? Well, whatever military action it

00:42:43.960 takes to facilitate, but why regime change. Okay. So, well, or, which I think is a ground

00:42:50.040 invasion, the nuclear weapon. Yeah. And I guess I don't buy that you perhaps would accept a future

00:42:59.240 where Iran continues all of these adversarial actions around the world, just without a nuclear 0.81

00:43:05.960 program at home. Right. Would I accept that? Would you, yeah. Would you accept that? Would

00:43:10.360 you accept them working with the cartels and Bolivia and infiltrating the UK just so, right? Like,

00:43:16.840 there would still be a threat. No, I think we should continue. Exactly. We should continue.

00:43:20.680 To confront them, like you said, asymmetrically. Until when?

00:43:25.240 Well, until essentially America and Israel and their new Gulf allies have essentially taken out 1.00

00:43:32.200 all of these proxy groups and the maximum campaign of sanctions have essentially rid, um, Iran of,

00:43:39.480 of their, you know, economic, um, uh, uh, of their, their economic capabilities to fund these groups.

00:43:47.160 And, and they essentially have to, they're forced to focus primarily on their own people.

00:43:53.640 Yeah, I, I get that. I think that starting down that path, starting down this path of U.S. military

00:44:03.560 action necessitates a world where we are involved in a regime change in Iran.

00:44:09.640 But why? Because, because look at the, look at the past, like, look at what not everything has to be,

00:44:15.800 not, not everything is a rock. Okay. Look at, look at what Trump,

00:44:20.760 not, can I explain why? Because, so why it would happen? Trump, but what about, what about Trump

00:44:25.480 taking out, um, what about Trump spending two years taking out ISIS? Boom, done. What about,

00:44:30.600 what about Trump spending three years taking out Al-Shabaab in Somalia? Boom, done. You know what?

00:44:35.160 What about Trump in North Korea? Yeah, if I could. What about, you know what I mean? Like,

00:44:38.360 these are one and done things. Why does everything have to, to, to, why, why does your brain go to a hundred percent?

00:44:45.080 So I, there's examples of Trump being, of, of actually being successful at caring, at taking

00:44:51.880 military action that does not result in like forever wars or boots on the ground.

00:44:57.000 The fight against ISIS did involve boots on the ground. That's true. ISIS did.

00:45:00.360 Uh, Americans, myself included, uh, Kurds, tons of, tons of thousands of Kurds where Soleimani was

00:45:08.040 killed in Baghdad, Iraq. What I'm saying is that we, we carried out a strike. We took military action

00:45:15.000 and that was a one and done thing. I'm just saying not every military action means that it's going to

00:45:19.960 end in boots on the ground or a forever war or, you know, hundreds of American casualties.

00:45:26.280 I just want to, I just want to, want to, want to draw the parameters here. Um, is, is your position,

00:45:31.320 no military intervention, the U.S. should stay out of it?

00:45:34.360 I think my position is, is the status quo with a credible threat of U S military action in order

00:45:41.480 to facilitate a better deal that provides a more permanent end to the Iranian nuclear program

00:45:49.640 becoming a weapons program. But you are then saying, you are, you are then saying that there

00:45:53.240 is a possibility of U S military invention, uh, intervention. Uh, so to what scale, depending

00:46:00.040 on the threat, would you tolerate U S military invention? Like what I mean by that is,

00:46:04.440 if Iran, if the Ayatollah goes on TV, literally holding a red button with a giant

00:46:08.840 nuke behind him saying, we're going to launch this, would you then propose a, a, a military

00:46:12.840 and like a full regime change? If, if we have a credible threat that Iran is about to launch 0.82

00:46:19.640 a nuclear weapon at America or at Israel, then of course it necessitates 0.96

00:46:25.000 a proportion, a just preemptive action. Like actual, I'm saying is, is there a scenario and

00:46:31.480 it's silly to say, you know, I've got a button, but is there a scenario in your mind where we

00:46:35.080 have to send U S troops into Iran? Well, so this is my point. If Iran, uh, killed U S soldiers,

00:46:43.480 certainly at scale as, as they already have, but in an exchange of conventional military firepower,

00:46:48.760 then the United States would be justified in invading Iran. I think, but the, the way to 0.95

00:46:53.720 avoid that is to stay out of offensive military action against the regime right now. There's,

00:47:00.680 there, there real quick, there's one scenario where I think literally 95% of people in this country

00:47:05.720 agree that we would send boots on the ground into Iran. And that is the assassination of Donald Trump

00:47:11.400 by the Iranians. I've even talked to anti-interventionist libertarians who agreed

00:47:15.960 if a foreign nation kills your president, you are, you there, there is, there is no question.

00:47:20.280 It's an obligation to respond. Your nation doesn't exist if your leaders are killed by your enemies.

00:47:25.960 So I think most people, when we have this conversation of intervention or not,

00:47:30.520 we're really just talking about the threshold of threat. At what point do we deem the threat to

00:47:35.480 have exceeded the red line to which we have to go in. And I think what we're really seeing is

00:47:40.440 the anti-intervention voices think that line is very, very far away. And then many people think

00:47:45.640 we're at that line, you know, that if Iran gets fissile material, then the line is like,

00:47:50.760 then it's too late. So the right, the line is now that they're so close to having it.

00:47:53.880 Well, and also like a nation like Israel, like, I want to talk about how close they actually are

00:47:58.520 though. America can afford to take a lot more risks with Iran than like a nation of Israel can. 0.92

00:48:04.040 So it also just depends, it also just depends like, you know, what, what, like, you know,

00:48:10.440 where we are in the world and, and how we're looking at it. So I don't describe myself as an

00:48:15.400 anti-

00:48:16.360 I don't describe myself as an anti-interventionist. I think the United States should take military

00:48:22.360 action when it is necessary to preserve the interests of the American people, uh, and,

00:48:28.440 and our nation, our borders, uh, to say that, you know, it's anti-interventionist or not is,

00:48:34.280 I think a little bit of a way to misframe, misframe the debate.

00:48:38.040 I definitely don't think you're an anti-interventionist. I've seen you on Fox.

00:48:41.240 Well, you know, I, I, I am, uh, I am more restrained than most, I hope.

00:48:46.840 Yes. I would, I would, I would classify you as someone who urges for foreign restraint. 1.00

00:48:50.680 I, I, I do think that there are extremes on the issue and the anti-interventionist voices

00:48:58.920 have more prominent extreme, uh, uh, personalities.

00:49:02.840 So utopian.

00:49:03.800 Than the pro intervention. Typically, like even Mark Levin, who is probably one of the most pro

00:49:10.040 intervention is if I were to scale things at like a minus 10 to positive 10 and the positive 10 people

00:49:17.800 are like, go in boots on the ground, take over, remove the Ayatollah. And the anti-interventionists 0.71

00:49:22.680 are like, we should never be involved no matter what you're insane. Minus 10. I think that the 0.97

00:49:27.080 prominent voices we see that are anti-intervention skew closer to the extreme than the pro intervention

00:49:32.840 forces. Not, I'm not, it's not, it's not a moral judgment. I'm saying the pro intervention

00:49:36.920 individuals know they have a hard sell to make. And so they're trying to come across as more reserved

00:49:41.720 and more reluctant to actually engage in conflict.

00:49:44.200 But do you think that is a, a fact of their messaging or of their actual vision?

00:49:50.120 I think it's PR. Their actual vision is like Bolton when he said, next year we'll be celebrating

00:49:54.920 in Tehran. Right.

00:49:56.280 Publicly, they know that if they come out and they say, we're going to send boots on the

00:49:59.240 ground, tens of thousands of Americans will die and we will raise an American flag over 0.80

00:50:03.400 their capital city. If you say that you're going to lose the PR battle instantly.

00:50:06.840 Well, but like I'm, but, but I'm somebody who, I don't think that's all always true. I mean,

00:50:14.600 maybe there are some of these people that are more reserved and secretly are war hawks or warmongers.

00:50:20.280 But I think a lot of these people who support President Trump just really believe in a, in

00:50:24.680 a peace through strength agenda and really do, uh, really do think that, that Iran is a credible

00:50:32.680 national security threat.

00:50:34.680 Trump's doing it all right. I'm, I'm very impressed.

00:50:36.520 I'm very impressed too.

00:50:37.880 He met with Bannon and called Tucker on the phone.

00:50:39.720 Well, I think Tucker called him and Tucker apologized, but a private meeting with Steve

00:50:43.880 Bannon shows that Trump is actually listening to the people. He's listening to his advisors.

00:50:50.360 He, he, he, he does pay attention. And I, I'm hoping that.

00:50:53.640 I don't know if meeting with Steve Bannon means that he's listening. I mean,

00:50:57.000 Steve Bannon has a very, I don't know.

00:50:59.000 I absolutely, look, he's clearly perceptive.

00:51:01.560 But I agree with you on track.

00:51:02.280 But you know, you've seen what all the polls say about this, right? About what the America,

00:51:07.080 how the American people feel about this.

00:51:09.400 So depending on the question, the, there's sentiment against striking Iran, but sentiment

00:51:15.240 in favor of stopping them from getting a nuke, which is like,

00:51:18.120 Depend, what does it mean?

00:51:20.120 Not even, I mean,

00:51:21.000 I think it's a mixed bag. I mean, in 83% of Americans wanted us to invade Iraq.

00:51:25.800 And then in, in two years, less than two years, it was a completely toxic political position.

00:51:33.000 Well, look, we get what we deserve, right? We get what we vote for. And what we, I mean,

00:51:36.120 it is the will of the people. So even if we are stupid and we believe, you know, in, in, in, 0.99

00:51:41.480 in the government taking certain actions that end up, uh, you know, shooting us in the foot, 0.99

00:51:47.160 like, I'm sorry, that's our right. That's, that's our, that's how the world works. That's how it

00:51:51.480 should go. We can't be shielded from death and making mistakes if it's the will of the people.

00:51:56.600 Right. Um, and, and I think that sure we can, we, we don't govern by referendum. So I don't,

00:52:03.320 I mean, it doesn't need to, my point is it doesn't need to dictate foreign policy.

00:52:06.360 We don't have like mob, mob rule, but what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is if an

00:52:10.440 overwhelming amount of people are supporting a certain action, like on the foreign policy,

00:52:16.200 like international stage, then I don't think that without good reason, they're like a,

00:52:25.160 a small group of people then should be like, Oh no, all of you people are wrong.

00:52:29.400 Yeah. But it's clear right now that there is not overwhelming support for us military

00:52:33.000 intervention. I don't know. I mean, look at the punch bowl poll, the CNN poll, the, uh,

00:52:39.320 the JL partners poll, none of these, I mean, well, maybe punch, but CNN and, and JL partners,

00:52:45.480 they don't use you gov. Rasmussen doesn't use you gov and jail partners found that 65% of

00:52:51.080 MAGA Republicans more than the conventional Republicans, which they found were 50% favored

00:52:57.160 were in favor of us strikes. Now, would they be in favor of a ground invasion? Maybe not. Maybe

00:53:02.840 that would be the red line, but they did find that 65% would support president Trump in a strike.

00:53:09.320 Yeah. I think it's a mixed bag. Steve Bannon said, if Trump decides to join the war, MAGA will get on

00:53:15.160 board. That's a, that's a bold statement. I think you lose permanently 20% of MAGA for sure. But I

00:53:22.360 think a lot of Trump supporters will grumble and be like, I can only trust my president or something

00:53:26.600 like that. Well, because Trump's record is incredible. I mean, he's, he, he, he really has

00:53:32.200 an impeccable record of, like I said, taking military action, but not leading us into disastrous

00:53:39.320 consequences. Can I just choose to believe the poll that represents my worldview though,

00:53:42.840 and ignore all the rest? Because, uh, you gov says, no, people don't want military action.

00:53:47.800 And so as long as my political position is aligned with one poll, I'll ignore all the other ones.

00:53:52.280 Yeah. But that's why I was saying you gov is like a, I mean, there's a lot of problematic.

00:53:55.480 I agree. I agree. You gov is, yeah, but that's, but I'm look at the jail partners poll. Look at the

00:54:01.400 punch bowl poll. Look at the CNN poll. Maybe punch bowl uses you gov. I'm not sure, but I know that CNN

00:54:06.600 doesn't. I know that jail partners doesn't. And Rasmussen, look at the Rasmussen poll for me. They don't use you gov. 0.87

00:54:13.320 I don't want to say I don't care. My point is that they're all similar. They're all saying the same

00:54:18.580 thing. That's my point. The issue is that the questions are asked. It's not that split. It's

00:54:23.140 not that split as people want to say. The majority of Americans do support, uh, President Trump and

00:54:27.740 MAGA. They don't want, they don't want, um, Iran, the majority of Americans do not want Iran to have 0.86

00:54:32.480 a nuclear weapon. They understand Iran is a, uh, a nuclear Iran would be an even bigger national 0.98

00:54:38.120 security threat to America than they already are. And some of that, and some of that population, 0.95

00:54:43.820 um, depending on the poll would support military action in the form of strikes. I haven't seen any,

00:54:49.600 I haven't seen any polling about a ground invasion. I haven't looked.

00:54:52.640 You know, what's really funny too, is just sort of as an aside, there's a lot of anger at Trump.

00:54:56.860 Even Tucker Carlson said Trump is complicit in this war. Trump hasn't done anything yet.

00:55:00.960 Well, it's, it's, you know, the commentary online right now is it's as if, I mean, well,

00:55:08.800 it depends on what you read because there's contradictory reports where either Trump did

00:55:11.980 know or didn't know was involved. This was the most brilliant deception plan. I mean, it was

00:55:19.520 absolute. Oh my God. I'm sorry. Anybody who thinks that Netanyahu did not coordinate with America

00:55:26.120 does not understand anything about the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump. I'm sorry. Netanyahu

00:55:33.760 is Trump's bitch. I'm just going to say it for all like, you know how, you know how the media painted 1.00

00:55:40.140 in a ridiculous image of, of president Trump, right? Through like Russiagate and all of the lies

00:55:47.160 about him that just bared no reality to the person he was, right? He's a fascist. He's a dictator, 0.99

00:55:51.840 all this kind of stuff. That's exactly what Western media does with Netanyahu. I don't like

00:55:57.840 Netanyahu at all. So I'm not saying like, this is not like, you know, I'm not cheerleading for

00:56:01.900 Netanyahu, but the way that the, the media portrays him and the way that conservatives have

00:56:07.000 even fallen for some of the media's lies about him is hysterical. Netanyahu is not a hawk. He is a

00:56:14.580 pussy. He is a bitch. And he essentially has, has like, I mean, the anti-Israel people don't know 1.00

00:56:21.580 whether to cheer or, or get angry because they want to believe Israel controls America. I know, 0.84

00:56:25.840 of course. Well, that's the thing is this is all, this is all binaries. It's war or appeasement. It's

00:56:29.820 the Iraq war or, you know, or, I mean, but the thing is like, what's different? Look, all of these

00:56:35.400 conservatives that are now saying we should make a deal. Like, let me ask you, Will, like,

00:56:38.580 like you, Trump ran on the idea that the JCPOA in 2015 was an absolute disaster. So if, if, if

00:56:50.600 Iran is not agreeing to these new terms, these more, these more hardline terms that Trump is giving

00:56:58.220 them, then how could a deal be possible? There, because there was real evidence and reporting that

00:57:05.360 they had agreed to a more, agreed to some terms that would have made a more stringent deal

00:57:09.960 before Israel started their campaign of airstrikes. I didn't hear that. What I heard is that the

00:57:14.800 Ayatollah had, so can I, let me, let me, maybe I could just go on a little bit. So there is a world

00:57:20.520 where, for example, Iran accepts an inspection regime that includes American inspectors, a key

00:57:27.640 oversight of the JCPOA and something that I think would go a long way towards visibility into a future

00:57:34.040 nuclear program. And, and hey, there's even a world where the Israeli military campaign is a really

00:57:40.420 effective means of getting an even better deal. And that's, that's what I think we need to talk about

00:57:45.700 is how, what does Israel do from here? It's pretty clear that they cannot achieve the outcome of ending 0.93

00:57:52.960 the nuclear program militarily by themselves. I think that's true. And so perhaps this is the time,

00:58:00.440 if it's true what there is reported about Israel's air defense stocks, if it's true that they can't

00:58:07.060 destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, then I think a great outcome for Israel is to use this kind of 1.00

00:58:14.580 zenith of pressure to back Iran into a corner where they have to accept a good deal. That to me is, 0.77

00:58:23.420 I don't know, but I imagine can be an organizing principle of US diplomatic policy here and foreign

00:58:30.880 policy. Because, again, the future is one where Israel either starts to risk their own population 0.90

00:58:38.920 and their own defense and civilian infrastructure. Or, again, it's even, it's even further escalation.

00:58:46.060 That's why I think, you know, this weekend is, is so key. These two weeks Trump has given us is so

00:58:50.240 key because it's the chance for Israel's military action to produce the best possible outcome,

00:58:55.500 which is a better deal for Israel and the United States. And that, that, otherwise we get to the

00:59:00.860 point where we run out of steam. Israel runs out of steam in some ways, defensively and offensively, 0.60

00:59:05.640 and this starts to get really bad, whether we can control it or not. I don't know what you think

00:59:11.460 about that. But again, we have to be real about what, what defensive interceptors look like.

00:59:15.880 It sounds like to me that like the, the, the, the evidence and the reporting that comes out that

00:59:23.220 kind of fits, um, you know, your kind of preconceived assessment about this and the

00:59:29.220 evidence and reporting that comes out on a day-to-day basis that fits my already previous

00:59:35.520 assessments are perhaps different. It's like, we're looking at different evidence. I'm looking at

00:59:41.080 evidence. I'm looking, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm in like WhatsApp groups and, and telegram groups with,

00:59:45.780 like, you know, with Iranians and IDF, um, people, you know, that are sending real time stuff

00:59:52.120 that are saying different things to me than, you know, than what your groups are telling you

00:59:57.340 about whether, about whether, you know, Iranians are about whether the Ayatollahs are, are prepared

01:00:03.320 to actually give up their nuclear weapons program in a real way for this deal.

01:00:07.440 Yeah. I mean, you know, there was, uh, uh, some social media reporting that there was an Iranian

01:00:14.320 plane that flew to Oman with a delegation on Tuesday. Uh, I think three planes.

01:00:20.720 Well, sure. And so there, there is always going to be bluster from the regime, from the Ayatollah.

01:00:26.080 There's always going to be the, the chance of death to America, but I think you have to look at the

01:00:31.560 actions of the government. Uh, you know, frankly, they, there, there's a world in which they could

01:00:37.660 have already escalated this if they really hated America so much. And if they really wanted to cling

01:00:42.720 to their nuclear regime to the death, uh, I, you know, if I'm, if I'm just putting myself in their 0.94

01:00:47.780 shoes and I, I wanted a nuclear program, but they have other, no, but they have certain ambitions that

01:00:54.720 they are always weighing. Right. So like, of course they want to destroy America. Of course they want to

01:01:00.240 take down the West. Right. But they are, but they are trying to do this in multiple ways in different

01:01:06.180 geopolitical theaters of war around the world. So if they believe that, you know, dropping a nuclear,

01:01:11.980 uh, bomb is going to offset some other things that they're trying to do, like everything's like in

01:01:17.760 that sense, like in that sense, they are rational because they're, they're essentially juggling all

01:01:24.660 their different methods of, of, you know, uh, ambitions for global domination. And they're trying

01:01:31.480 to figure out what is the best way to achieve that on any given day. I agree with you, but that's why

01:01:36.720 if the United States gets militarily involved, all bets are off for them because they know that they're

01:01:42.840 in a world where they're not just fighting the IDF, they're fighting the American military. Right.

01:01:50.420 That requires a, you know, a complete escalation of violence. We get to see, we'll probably see the

01:01:57.140 whole nature of their, uh, air defense assets. That that's my concern with the, the news about

01:02:03.640 what this, what these bunker busters would or would not do. It seems to me that it would be

01:02:08.940 reasonable for Iran to preserve some of their most sophisticated air defense assets, especially around

01:02:13.280 their military sites. And so what it would look like, even let's say, we're not going to drop a

01:02:18.120 tactical, tactical nuclear weapon. But even if we're going to drop three or four bunker busters,

01:02:23.320 which is probably what it would take, that's also 10% of our supply. Uh, it would require

01:02:28.280 probably a half dozen other U S aircraft to go in before the B2s with the bunker busters,

01:02:35.060 expose themselves to air defense capability. That's tankers, you know, 40,000 feet.

01:02:39.300 That's what Israel's already done. 0.92

01:02:41.100 Control this controlling the skies.

01:02:42.720 And so that, and that assumes knowledge. It assumes that the Iranians are showing us 0.99

01:02:47.960 all their cards right now. And I think there has to be a degree of humility over the fact

01:02:53.320 that we don't yet know the full extent of what's left in the Iranian arsenal.

01:02:57.920 It's like when Goku is fighting someone, he doesn't go super saiyan right away.

01:03:02.860 Yeah. I don't necessarily grasp that analogy, but, but, but, but I, I think we're on the same

01:03:09.160 page. I, that is basically Iran is holding back waiting because I mean, I actually think the U S

01:03:16.960 understands this. Israel's going to go in, uh, Iran's known for their air defense, which, and

01:03:22.520 it's mountainous, which makes it very difficult for the U S to come and just flatten. Iran knows 0.99

01:03:26.940 they're not going to penetrate Israeli interceptors with U S support. So the assumption is they're

01:03:31.960 holding back their higher yield warheads until they feel that they're going to start breaking

01:03:35.700 through the interceptors. Additionally, they're going to keep air defense hidden and secure

01:03:41.320 and not use it. So it will not be targeted because they know the U S will try and come

01:03:45.720 with bunker busters. So I think it's fair to assume. And I think probably the U S has already

01:03:50.820 assessed this when they do go in with bombers, new, new Iranian air defense is going to pop

01:03:56.780 up. They did not know was there and rockets will be firing at our, at our, at our, I think

01:04:01.440 it's a possibility, but if we're prepared to, you know, doubt Iran's capability, like

01:04:05.620 I'm also, I'm also doubting these headlines that say that the Pentagon has briefed, uh,

01:04:14.700 Trump that, you know, and said that these bunker busting, these 30,000 bunker busting

01:04:19.220 bombs are not actually going to work and that it would require some sort of boots on the ground

01:04:23.160 commando raid. Like, you know, a lot of news like this has come out in the last few months,

01:04:29.020 a lot of stuff that's been like leaked to anonymous sources. And then Trump will like send out a

01:04:33.020 treatment. He'll just be like fake news, you know? So I'm just like, I'm, I'm skeptical of

01:04:37.840 that analysis too, especially when like, you know, this has been the scenario that has been mapped out

01:04:43.880 for, you know, over a decade, you know, of like possibly using, you know, these, these big bombs to,

01:04:50.700 to get to Fordo. And I don't think it's necessarily true. Look, it's all, it's also true that

01:04:58.500 Israel might be able to do this themselves with their 5,000 pound bombs. Okay. So like we have to, 0.86

01:05:07.260 we have to be skeptical about all of this. And this is why I said at the very beginning that what I

01:05:12.600 think America should do completely depends on how this develops on a day to day basis and what Israel 0.92

01:05:20.200 is discovering and, and, and how their operation is progressing, how we see the momentum of the

01:05:27.960 people on the ground in Iran shaping up. I think all of these factors are so important before we say

01:05:34.460 what America should or should not do. We need to be able to have multiple scenarios in our heads that

01:05:39.580 play out and, and, and come up with solutions for every single one of those scenarios.

01:05:44.540 I disagree with that only because if we were convinced that this was a, a reasonable, uh,

01:05:50.440 an operation with a reasonable chance of success and a necessary one, I think we had to have done

01:05:55.020 it this week because, I mean, and, and that, that's why I frankly, the 30,000 pounds. Yeah. Yeah.

01:06:01.160 Like just, uh, dropping bombs to destroy Fordo. I mean, who, who knows what other contingencies can be

01:06:06.060 put in place. Um, that's why I'm a little bit more hopeful. I'm, I'm, uh, I think the, you know,

01:06:12.740 once we get past this weekend, I'll be a little bit more hopeful for chances for a diplomatic

01:06:16.920 solution. I, because the decisive military action is about momentum and massing fire power, uh,

01:06:26.200 before the adversary can react to it or plan for it. Um, I think that the, uh, the reason these moves

01:06:34.300 are being made now has less to do with, uh, enriched uranium and more to do with, I think this will be

01:06:41.420 the last period based on current trends in which the U S supports Israel. I think within 10 years, 0.82

01:06:47.020 you're going to start seeing more and more calls to defund USA to Israel. And I think within 20

01:06:53.240 years, we probably cut off Israel entirely based on the, the trends in polling and sentiment towards

01:06:57.940 Israel with the, the boomers, uh, largely being the support base for us involvement with Israel. 0.75

01:07:06.080 I think as they start dying, getting older and, you know, exiting the, the, um, the, the economy,

01:07:12.800 exiting the economy, be it political or otherwise, you're going to get Gen Z politicians. And if 0.73

01:07:19.080 they're on the right, they're going to say, I don't know why we're funding this. And if they're on the

01:07:22.680 left, they're going to say, we hate Israel. Okay. The end result is the funding is cut off. And if this

01:07:28.300 were 10 years from now and Israel started striking Iran, the US would be like, leave us out of it. Bye.

01:07:32.740 Okay. Um, that's a whole different conversation that I am so happy to get into if we, because

01:07:38.960 you just said a lot of things that actually assume, um, uh, certain, I'm not assuming I would say

01:07:46.020 misconceptions about the relationship between I'm basing it off of the existing polls from Pew as

01:07:50.340 of March. No, no, no, no, no. I know. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that your assumption about

01:07:53.960 people not supporting Israel is incorrect. I'm saying your characterization of funding Israel and

01:07:59.580 USAID actually, USAID, sorry. And, uh, funding them through, uh, USAID and getting paid and all

01:08:06.260 that or whatever. And the memorandum, however, all the ways that we've given it, whether it's

01:08:10.340 $2 billion and the $3.8 billion package or USA, USAID help, whatever it is, right. All the ways in

01:08:18.320 which we fund and help Israel, like to me that like, do I believe that the, the younger generations

01:08:26.500 are going to be, um, you know, fundamentally opposed to this? Sure. But that's only if the

01:08:32.640 messaging stays the same. And if that, if, if, if people still continue to believe that we are

01:08:38.800 literally writing like a blank check to Israel and they can do whatever they want, because that is

01:08:43.380 a flat out lie. Nobody understands, nobody understands what this quote unquote aid actually

01:08:51.520 does for America. And people calling it aid makes them believe that like America isn't getting an

01:08:58.940 extraordinary return. Not material to what I'm saying. It's not material to what I'm saying.

01:09:04.160 Let's just call it funding. The current sentiment, according to Pew is minus 53. So 53% of Americans

01:09:09.900 reportedly have an unfavorable view of Israel. I don't really care about whether that number is

01:09:15.020 accurate. I care about the trends that Pew has tracked. I think trends are better,

01:09:18.660 are easier to understand because they're using similar polling methodology and using the similar

01:09:22.940 methodology, they found a different result. That is for, uh, U S adults aged 18 to 49 among Republicans,

01:09:30.940 Republicans are lean, right. It went from 35 to 50% unfavorable. And among Democrats,

01:09:36.300 it's 62 to 71. The younger generation is overwhelmingly shifting in that direction.

01:09:42.220 Israel would not be able to launch an attack on Iran like this even five years from now.

01:09:46.660 I know. But what I'm saying to you, Tim, what I'm saying to you is that the nature,

01:09:51.500 the relationship between Israel and America will change. It's already started to change since October

01:09:58.440 7th. So it won't matter. So I'm not saying that this isn't true. It could be true. But right now,

01:10:03.860 what is happening is what October 7th showed, uh, Israel is that essentially the entire like post 0.60

01:10:12.340 Yom Kippur war do decision to gut their, you know, the most important units of their military

01:10:20.480 and focus on, you know, what they call a small and smart army and offload, you know, so much

01:10:26.460 manufacturing to America and depend America was like depend on America for their, you know, military

01:10:33.980 needs was, might've been the, like the biggest mistake that Israel has ever made in the history 0.89

01:10:41.060 of its existence. And it is now taking, um, it is now trying to correct that. I wish it was taking,

01:10:48.440 I wish, I mean, this gets into the whole IDF and the political class in Israel and the,

01:10:53.260 and the generals and whatever, and all that, all the whole can of worms. But I hope, and it seems

01:10:58.700 like people are starting to wake up in Israel that like over time, they, a hundred percent,

01:11:05.000 they should decouple with America because it's an unhealthy, toxic, um, you know, uh, like essentially

01:11:13.260 like the fact that, that America, I mean, look at, we saw what happened with Biden. Biden was holding,

01:11:19.520 um, Israel hostage one hand tied behind their back. They wouldn't let Israel do what they needed to do 0.79

01:11:23.860 to win the war. And it ended up prolonging this Gaza war and dragging it out for way longer than it

01:11:29.440 need to be dragged just because Biden knew that he had, he was able to, to pull the strings because

01:11:35.680 he was holding hostage, hostage, necessary armaments that Israel needed for this war.

01:11:41.540 Well, I have a question. Do you guys think that, let's say the U.S. had zero involvement with

01:11:46.100 Israel, like we weren't providing any funding in any capacity and we only had like very loose

01:11:50.960 communications. Do you think that activists would protest the same over the Israel Gaza war?

01:11:57.020 Oh, for sure. Like, so it's, I guess it's, it's not because the U.S. is involved.

01:12:02.740 No, no, no. There's always another reason that they invent. Of course. It's the same stuff

01:12:07.020 regurgitated, but, but there's a reason why I brought this up because the follow-up is why,

01:12:12.020 why don't we have the same protests over like the weird Muslims in China? 1.00

01:12:16.160 Yeah. But look, Israel is damned if they do damned if they don't. Look, you even saw this 0.99

01:12:19.980 with like the anti-interventionists, right? Like when, like right at the beginning, um, when,

01:12:24.520 when, uh, Israel carried out this, this incredible, you know, Michael Corleone,

01:12:30.460 Sherlock Holmes, 007 strike on the, on the 12th and 13th, um, immediately the response from like

01:12:37.000 people like Jack Posobiec and, and, and, and, you know, some Groypers and stuff like that were like,

01:12:40.880 this is the ultimate betrayal of Netanyahu. And these are the, I mean, of president Trump.

01:12:46.060 And these are the same people saying that like, we need to decouple and, you know, Israel should 1.00

01:12:50.960 just like do their own thing. And like America should, well, which is it? Do you want Israel 0.97

01:12:55.480 to do their own thing? Or do you want Israel to be coordinating with America? This is always, 0.71

01:13:00.560 no matter what Israel does, because Israel is the collective Jew, Israel's just the collective Jew. 0.72

01:13:05.320 Any classic trope that you apply, classic anti-Semitic trope that you apply to the anti-Semitic Jew 0.86

01:13:10.360 has just been transferred in the modern age onto the state of Israel.

01:13:13.900 Do you think it would have been pro, I don't know what's true in many ways, but do you think

01:13:19.000 it would have been problematic or it would be problematic if we found out that Netanyahu

01:13:23.800 launched this military operation knowing that Israel needed America to finish the job? And he did so 0.88

01:13:32.820 without prior coordination with Trump?

01:13:34.960 Oh yeah, that would be problematic. But not if he did it with, with coordination.

01:13:39.500 Right. And so, oh, I think.

01:13:40.800 If he did it, if he did it.

01:13:42.560 I agree with you.

01:13:43.440 With no, if he did it with no plan in place to carry, carry this out without America's help.

01:13:52.720 Well, right. And so, but he.

01:13:54.500 And he didn't tell Trump?

01:13:56.020 Yes, that would be very problematic.

01:13:57.440 There's mixed reporting, right?

01:13:58.560 That would be very problematic.

01:13:59.460 They obviously did this.

01:14:00.700 I'm the first to criticize Netanyahu for that.

01:14:02.640 Yeah, honestly, I didn't expect that. But, but, you know, there's plenty of reporting that

01:14:06.840 indicates President Trump and the Americans asked Israel not to strike multiple times.

01:14:13.520 There's a, there's negotiations scheduled for the Sunday, last Sunday, I suppose. Right.

01:14:18.960 And so my point is, like, if we want to perhaps abate this trend, because I think Tim is right,

01:14:27.060 that it's a, it's kind of a pivotal point for the Israel-U.S. relationship that I don't think

01:14:32.260 you can just wish away on either side. And that, that's why diplomacy is, these numbers

01:14:40.500 will accelerate drastically if there is, I think, even a not necessarily that long protracted

01:14:47.000 war in the Middle East, because Americans don't want that. They don't, they don't want

01:14:53.260 military involvement in the Middle East, despite kind of the, the proximate issues of-

01:14:58.140 Right. And unfortunately, they've been brainwashed by the media for decades to believe that, that

01:15:05.120 the relationship with Israel is one of the reasons why we're tied to the Middle East, when

01:15:09.880 in actuality, Israel is America's biggest buffer in the Middle East that allows America to 0.95

01:15:16.860 redirect resources to the Indo-Pacific, to China. Without Israel, America would have so many more 0.91

01:15:25.240 expenditures. They would need to have even more boots in the middle, boots on the ground that 0.60

01:15:29.500 they do. Look, they don't have an air base and they don't have a base in Israel, right? They don't

01:15:32.840 fight Israel's wars. Israel fights their own wars, but they have bases everywhere else. They still 0.95

01:15:37.300 haven't gotten out of Germany since World War II.

01:15:39.420 I think you're right. And that's why the best case scenario-

01:15:42.660 The best case scenario is-

01:15:43.840 Is a world where Israel's decisive, kind of surgical military action precipitates a better 0.99

01:15:50.960 diplomatic solution that is more enduring than the JCPOA or the years without the JCPOA that saw

01:15:58.720 runaway tensions. Because then that's a world where Israel shows that they don't need direct 0.92

01:16:05.160 U.S. military involvement to achieve some of their strategic military outcomes. And it's

01:16:09.440 also a world where the United States doesn't need to be further, more further militarily involved

01:16:15.080 in the Middle East after 30 years of boots on, still boots on the ground.

01:16:20.060 I have a question. If, hypothetically, say Donald Trump could snap his fingers and erase the existing

01:16:29.820 regime of Iran and their insurgent proxies in the region, should he do it?

01:16:35.600 A hundred percent.

01:16:37.660 And I'm saying this, my point is, if it was within the power of the United States to remove

01:16:43.000 troublesome actors, violent actors-

01:16:45.500 Yeah, I can tell you why. Because as we've seen with the Abraham Accords, many of these 0.99

01:16:52.160 Gulf countries are wanting to turn over a new leaf. Even if their populations are still largely,

01:16:58.100 you know, maybe like more tribal or have more like Islamist beliefs, they are walking a fine 1.00

01:17:05.900 line and countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE and Bahrain and even countries like Jordan and North

01:17:12.020 Africa, they want to be part of the modern world. They want to reap the benefits of having good

01:17:19.560 relationships with the West. And if anything proved that, it was the Abraham Accords. Now, 0.55

01:17:24.040 these countries- To play devil's advocate, I think the Abraham Accords are so possible 1.00

01:17:29.040 because there is a united, Sunni, Israel, United States coalition against the Iranians.

01:17:37.540 That's the point.

01:17:38.320 I wonder, if Tim's hypothetical is true and we snap our fingers and the regime goes away,

01:17:43.680 what does the Middle East look like without that counterbalance that could provide the predicate

01:17:48.220 for such a coalition?

01:17:49.220 So wait, so let me say, so because the Gulf countries have these goals, right? What's the

01:17:56.340 biggest hindrance to that? You just said it. It's Iran. Okay? They're all threatened. They're 1.00

01:18:02.140 all threatened. Iran has been trying to, in conjunction with Sunni groups like the Muslim

01:18:08.300 Brotherhood, they have been trying to take out the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan, the House of Saud. 0.99

01:18:15.860 Um, they've been trying to take out the government of Oman, of Morocco, of, of, of Bahrain. I said

01:18:22.380 Jordan. Okay. So these people, is that true? Like actually, I, I obviously there's a conflict

01:18:27.640 with Saudi Arabia, but go look at, go look at the work of like Yorm Ettinger. He has literally been

01:18:32.140 done. This is his expertise. He has, he's former ambassador and, and anyway, he has literally been

01:18:37.040 documenting this for his entire career. I'll say, I, I don't, I don't want the Iranian regime to stick 0.98

01:18:42.380 around, but there is a world where, uh, you know, a perhaps feeble, um, you know, inflamed and angry

01:18:48.540 Shiite regime does some, some modicum of, uh, good by rallying the rest of the civilized Arab world.

01:18:56.680 And getting them to, yeah, yeah. Essentially. Yeah. Essentially. I see what you're saying and it's a,

01:19:00.960 it's a possibility, but what I'm saying is that the Abraham Accords are not some like cold peace,

01:19:07.320 like what happened with like, you know, Egypt and Israel or Jordan and Israel, where it's like,

01:19:12.400 they're kind of still playing both sides. And sometimes they, aren't they better? Right.

01:19:15.580 Aren't they better than that? The Abraham Accords, that is like real, real top down and ground up, 0.99

01:19:23.180 like peace building on all sides. Okay. And so once that, once that, once that infrastructure,

01:19:32.820 that architecture is in place, it's going to be very hard. If you take out a nation like Iran 1.00

01:19:39.400 and these peace deals have already been signed and they are in the same, you know, like I said,

01:19:44.280 there, it's not like a cold peace, like the peace deals of Jordan or Egypt, but it's more of the

01:19:47.580 Abraham Accords. Then that's going to be very, very hard to, to break up because you have it

01:19:52.620 happening on a people to people basis. Do we remember the Middle East before the Islamic regime?

01:19:57.140 Obviously it's not been great since, but before the Islamic regime, you had what, four wars between

01:20:04.300 different Arab states and the Israelis? Well, that was the whole, that was the whole, uh, period of like 0.95

01:20:09.320 pan Arabism and, and, and that the whole, yeah, I mean, that was like a, that was when, that was before 1.00

01:20:16.100 these Gulf states had essentially decided to give up their, you know, Sunni fundamentalist beliefs and

01:20:24.380 like come to the table and try to moderate and try to reform. Yes. I, I hear you. Even if they,

01:20:30.500 even if they were secular, even if it was like a regime, like regime, like Egypt, like, right,

01:20:34.820 he, they, they still had, they were still Arab. So even like the secular Arab states had these 0.97

01:20:40.280 fanatical tribal views. That's why I wonder if the true best, if the true best case scenario

01:20:46.020 is an Iranian regime that is still a Shiite Islamic Republic, but one that is closer to North Korea

01:20:55.860 in its geopolitical and economic relationships with the rest of the world, uh, genuinely isolated,

01:21:03.220 but still in existence and kind of under the thumb of this Arab Israeli coalition in the United States

01:21:09.740 that doesn't pose a threat to, uh, you know, to Israel certainly. And, and to the, you know,

01:21:16.840 to the regional, uh, counterbalance. I'm not willing to keep a regime. Like, I'm not willing

01:21:22.740 to be like, Oh, you know, keep this regime. I look, I think that's what, what has led us to this point

01:21:27.360 to begin with is these strategies of like containment. This is what Israel strategy has 0.92

01:21:31.940 been since like day one of their existence. It's ridiculous. It's like the, it's like the containment, 0.95

01:21:36.660 like, like the enemy I know is better than like the net. Like I think that has what has gotten in,

01:21:42.200 that is what has allowed October 7th to, to happen. Does the U S have the ground forces capable

01:21:48.280 for occupying Iran? No. Well, they a hundred percent do not. And also like, I don't think there's 0.91

01:21:56.700 anybody that would tolerate that. And even people who say we should like nuke Iran, I don't think any

01:22:02.860 of them would even the biggest war hawks. I don't think any of them would say. And the reason why

01:22:07.440 they wouldn't say that to him, the reason why they wouldn't say we need to occupy Iran is because

01:22:11.800 those people have some understanding of the differences between the Persian people and the

01:22:16.220 Arab people. Okay. Well, my question was just, if we have the forces to do so, the reason being, 0.96

01:22:20.680 it sounds like the tactical nuke statement about, we got a bunker bust and then nuke it is a big ask.

01:22:27.040 Like the, the goal being, Oh no, I mean, all we can do is nuke it. There is another option though.

01:22:32.680 Israel's proposed human intervention with commandos. However, if you want commandos to

01:22:37.460 go into Florida to actually start dismantling and blowing all this stuff up, you're going to have

01:22:41.640 to secure the entire region, which means you'll need a ground invasion first. Not necessarily.

01:22:48.220 How do you control the skies? I think that you pair, you pair drop some one way commandos into the

01:22:53.080 Florida to blow it up and then rogue one kamikaze themselves. Well, I think it depends how much 0.99

01:22:58.020 damage they've done before that takes place before, before the, the commando raid on Florida

01:23:03.740 actually commences. You will not be able to, I mean, but I could be wrong. I'm not will. What,

01:23:08.380 I mean, what is your assessment of that? I don't know. It is a theoretical possibility. I think it

01:23:15.120 requires probably the entirety of Israel's tier one special operations, uh, forces. I'm, I'm frankly

01:23:24.020 more concerned about, uh, what happens after they leave, you know, what, what is the plan? Like

01:23:29.680 you start smashing centrifuges with hammer, you know, like presumably this is, uh, uh, it's, I think

01:23:36.820 it's achievable in, in concept. If, if it is true that Iran doesn't have a robust air defense,

01:23:42.860 um, then, then I think, yes, it happens. But what, what it would look like theoretically,

01:23:48.940 let's say, is that Israel would focus precision fires and, you know, covert, uh, covert action to

01:23:56.920 what they call prepare the battlefield. And then, you know, some combination of, of airborne and air

01:24:02.720 assault forces, I think, you know, you would need hundreds of Israeli commandos on the ground.

01:24:07.720 Uh, and then probably what they call an outer cordon of more, more conventional, but still

01:24:13.500 special operations forces to prevent an Iranian counterattack. And then a whole host of, of air

01:24:19.700 power. I mean, it's a, it's a three or four, four day operation at a minimum. Uh, it's incredibly

01:24:26.480 risky. And I, I don't even have a good, uh, understanding of what Iranian military forces

01:24:32.540 exist around Fordo itself. Um, but I will say, I think it's probably, there's a higher chance of

01:24:39.460 success, even though it's much riskier with that than an airstrike. Cause, cause there has to be a

01:24:46.040 battle damage assessment assessment. I think, as you mentioned, Tim, uh, earlier in the show,

01:24:50.460 and that requires people on the ground, maybe it's intelligence officers, maybe it's an asset.

01:24:56.860 But, uh, but at the end of the day, all of this, a lot of these activities result in quote unquote

01:25:03.640 boots on the ground to figure out what the heck is going on in reality. Um, and so I, I don't think

01:25:10.880 it's, it's, uh, it's unreasonable for Israel to do this with commandos. I mean, that's, I think if,

01:25:16.940 if the Israeli military has a strength that is in surgical precision operations, uh, that,

01:25:23.420 that don't necessarily involve a commitment of sustained combat operations. So, um,

01:25:28.380 So let's just, let's just try this real quick. All right. So, uh, here's Google earth and,

01:25:33.660 uh, it takes 27 years for the stupid thing to load. Google maps is way better. All right. So 0.95

01:25:39.020 here's to Ron Fordo is just what it's somewhat self northeast of it. So there's the number two

01:25:44.480 on the ground there. If you see that blue shield, this right here, uh, to the left, sorry, I guess

01:25:50.060 this right here. Oh my God. I cannot. It's around there. It's yeah. It's, it's around that number

01:25:55.680 two. This is what our own home or home is right town. That's it's close. So, so, so they're saying

01:26:02.300 we are going to send Israeli commandos within driving distance of Tehran with 10 million people

01:26:09.520 and they're going to be able to waltz on. And one does not simply walk into Fordo nuclear facility

01:26:14.880 and destroy this. Well, if, if, uh, if you're, uh, no, they would, they would be dropping bombs as

01:26:19.660 well. Yeah. But if you're a historian of us military operations, uh, the first effort to

01:26:24.640 retrieve the American hostages from the embassy in Tehran was a joint special operations mission

01:26:31.380 called desert one, uh, that was not foiled by an Iranian airstrike or, you know, uh, enemy fire,

01:26:40.440 but it was foiled by a plane crash and a helicopter crash, uh, at a, at a, um, at a kind of loitering

01:26:49.520 area, an intermediate staging base in the desert of Iran, uh, that killed many Americans. It was a

01:26:57.180 colossal failure and embarrassment for the U S military. That's frankly left a huge stain and

01:27:03.040 extended the hostage crisis by probably another, you know, another many months. So it, it, it's not

01:27:11.840 even the fact that Iran might kind of kill Israel, Israelis with AK-47s or surface terror missiles.

01:27:17.320 I mean, just imagine what it would take to stage Israeli commandos. If you don't have the element 0.63

01:27:24.300 of surprise, then there's no, then there, there's nothing there, but you can see photos right here.

01:27:28.100 Don't forget about like the thousands of Iranians, the thousands that have been carrying out this

01:27:33.960 attack, this, this, this, this operation with Israel. My point is how, how, including the, the,

01:27:40.520 the now, uh, members of the Iranian military that have essentially defected and gone to, and,

01:27:48.260 and, you know, right. So, so just my point, like, how do you get human beings to Fordow with enough

01:27:56.260 time and resources, ordinance to destroy a deep underground military base, meaning they're going

01:28:02.020 to have to be carrying explosives in engineers, planting these things, detonating them and

01:28:08.020 escaping. It's a one way trip. So, so you're not, you're not beyond my, you have to, you're going

01:28:12.880 to have to invade Iran. This is, this is extremely close. It's around. It's a driving distance.

01:28:18.740 Can you find the nearest, uh, wait, why do you have to wait? But what do you mean it? Well,

01:28:22.720 of course they're going to, once you enter the country, you have to eventually, you have to land 0.67

01:28:26.000 planes in order to get stuff big enough to drop it by parachute and then go pick it up from wherever

01:28:31.980 it landed. I don't, I don't, like I would be surprised if I think you'd have to land a plane

01:28:36.800 somewhere. Right. So that's why I was asking Tim, if you could find an airstrip nearby because you'd

01:28:41.400 either, the, the, the mission is to either make an airstrip, uh, and that's possible, but very risky

01:28:47.380 or to find an airstrip that you can seize. This was the mission of my old unit where you parachute

01:28:53.320 onto an airstrip and then you create a, call it a lodgment or an area that you control that's big

01:28:59.540 enough where you can land plane, land planes and successive forces. Um, there, there, there's a,

01:29:06.760 there's a domestic airport, um, just North of calm. And then you're going to have a drive through a city

01:29:14.240 if that were the case. So, I mean, you're talking about securing these sites first,

01:29:19.000 which means you're not just going to airdrop some dudes in.

01:29:22.420 But do you guys not think that Israel, like, like, you guys don't think that Israel has

01:29:30.580 secret knowledge that we're not?

01:29:33.660 I'm sure they do.

01:29:34.340 Sure, sure. But the point is this, Israel has stated, if the U.S. doesn't do it,

01:29:39.100 they're going, one of their options is human commandos infiltrating and destroying Forto.

01:29:43.080 So that doesn't seem to make any sense to me. I have no idea. I mean,

01:29:47.340 it could be more, again, my point is,

01:29:49.360 I think it would be, um, I think, I think it would obviously be a, an operation that involves

01:29:55.840 not merely, uh, you know, this, this, this deliberate, you know, um, uh, uh, commando raid

01:30:06.220 and, uh, and, and accompanying airstrikes, but also like massive cyber attacks. And, um,

01:30:15.080 that doesn't change that 10 human beings with guns will be in a firefight with whoever you sent

01:30:21.500 in by air. The point is knock out their electrical grid, destroy their gas stations,

01:30:25.960 do whatever you got to do. If you want humans in Forto, you have to secure the region. You've,

01:30:31.680 you've got to make sure nobody can get in. Like you're saying, at least landing one plane.

01:30:35.560 I understand, but the risk is, is only, but the risk is that it's, it's the IRGC. I mean,

01:30:40.940 the risk isn't like insurgents.

01:30:43.700 I disagree. Partisans. I mean, uh, in your experience, what do you think the likelihood 1.00

01:30:49.920 of local militia just rising up if, if, if U S or Israeli troops are landing and, and no way,

01:30:56.060 I, I don't know. Why not? Why not? Why not? I just don't think so. Because I mean,

01:31:01.200 the, what do you think would happen? I guess, cause I look, I don't want to, I don't want to

01:31:05.380 sound so sure. I'm my father's daughter. If a plane flew over any rural area of the United States

01:31:11.020 and dudes with Iranian flags were flying out with guns, random hillbillies would be shooting 0.53

01:31:16.540 at them with pistols. That's because, because the, the population of Iran has a very different

01:31:21.200 outlook on this. And, and, and I don't know the Intel I'm getting is. You'll be greeted as

01:31:26.740 liberators. The poll. Israel's invading. Hooray. No, no. I think, I think that, well, look, 0.76

01:31:32.960 here's, here's the breakdown that they'll, they'll tell you. And then what the Intel that I'm getting

01:31:37.220 is slightly different, but the breakdown that they're saying is that, that they say,

01:31:40.720 and all the, you know, websites and everything is that like 80% of the population is supportive

01:31:48.980 of Israel. Supportive, not just critical of the regime, but actually supportive of Israel.

01:31:53.520 I don't believe 80% of the Iranian population.

01:31:55.640 What I'm. I don't know.

01:31:57.920 So, but it also depends. It also, well, I mean, I'm sorry, but have you guys not been privy to like

01:32:06.340 the communication between Iranians and Israel, there was great reporting for the last, like

01:32:11.040 over a decade. I mean, it's, it's really stunning. And I feel like we're acting as if these are like

01:32:18.080 sand people or something and not like a highly civilized, sophisticated, educated population 1.00

01:32:23.900 that is the least anti-Semitic in any Middle Eastern country, including many Western countries

01:32:29.400 like France and Germany, where the overwhelming majority of the people have been trying to,

01:32:35.320 trying to take out this, this, this, this regime, and not just in, you know, not just in 2022 with

01:32:41.640 the woman life freedom protest, but in 2017 and in 2009.

01:32:45.240 The reason why they're having trouble, the reason why they're trouble is having trouble

01:32:50.860 is because they're largely secular, these people, and they don't have the organizational structures

01:32:55.440 that like Khomeini found with the, with the mosques in the mosques that essentially was able

01:33:00.100 to unite people.

01:33:01.320 But we, you have to think about the IRGC itself.

01:33:04.080 There, I think the New York times, it was the New York times, wall street journal today

01:33:08.280 or yesterday had a report that the rank and file of the IRGC, that's where you find the,

01:33:14.040 the genuine Islamic radicals.

01:33:16.440 And so they're the guys with the guns, perhaps they, you know, they're still alive.

01:33:20.900 I don't, I don't believe for two seconds, the majority of, of Iran supports Israel.

01:33:25.120 I do think that's a stretch.

01:33:26.620 Um, that, that's why I think there, there is still, it's, it is not a.

01:33:31.500 I don't know why.

01:33:31.900 Persians are very, very different than Arabs. 1.00

01:33:35.580 Because they're currently being bombed by, by, by Israel. 0.88

01:33:39.600 Look, is there some, is there.

01:33:41.460 Yay, they've come to bomb us.

01:33:42.460 Is there some, no, they're not being bombed.

01:33:44.040 They're not being bombed by Israel.

01:33:44.860 That's just not true.

01:33:45.760 Israel is bombing Iran.

01:33:47.900 They're not bombing the people.

01:33:49.260 They're bombing the assets of the country.

01:33:51.480 I mean, like.

01:33:52.500 They're, they're not, they're not bombing civilians.

01:33:54.840 This is a very.

01:33:55.540 That is, that is not true.

01:33:56.520 Who's that, civilian? 1.00

01:33:57.240 They're not. 0.99

01:33:57.620 This is, this is, this is retarded. 1.00

01:33:59.260 No, no, no, no, no. 0.84

01:33:59.960 That's not what I was going to say. 1.00

01:34:00.260 The idea that a foreign country will bomb your country and you'll be like, yay, is stupid. 1.00

01:34:04.700 It's just stupid. 1.00

01:34:06.120 No. 1.00

01:34:06.380 It doesn't matter if it's military or otherwise.

01:34:08.080 And I didn't say it was civilian.

01:34:09.160 The idea that our military, any in the world, gets bombed and we go, hooray, finally it happened.

01:34:13.800 That is true.

01:34:14.560 It is true.

01:34:15.240 No way.

01:34:15.720 That there is a, a small contingent.

01:34:18.260 And this is, I've, I've seen a lot of these videos now.

01:34:20.360 There is a contingent of Iranians who were supportive of Israel.

01:34:24.320 And now they're worried, even Iranians in the diaspora.

01:34:28.060 True, and they're Americans who support, who support Hamas. 0.78

01:34:30.200 And they're worried.

01:34:30.900 And they're worried about that for sure.

01:34:32.040 Imagine, imagine Iran playing videos of Hamas supporters.

01:34:34.920 But there's a lot of people, Tim.

01:34:35.520 And being like, look, America actually supports Hamas.

01:34:37.800 Tim, the people, the Iranian, like, diaspora that I speak to, almost all of them still have family there in Iran.

01:34:49.480 And they are all praying for Israel's success.

01:34:54.140 And they really, really do.

01:34:55.840 They're marching in the street in New York holding signs saying, stop bombing my home.

01:34:59.540 Well, and there's, have you seen those protesters?

01:35:01.140 Yes, I have.

01:35:02.060 Do you know how many protesters there are?

01:35:03.860 A thousand, two thousand?

01:35:04.920 You think that Iran has not activated their whole, like, propagandist network on behalf of the regime?

01:35:13.480 You know who these people are?

01:35:14.740 And vice versa.

01:35:16.960 What do you mean?

01:35:17.580 Like, you're sitting here right now trying to convince us that 80% of the people of Iran are supporting Israel?

01:35:24.840 Well, that's, look, that's just what all the polls show on the internet.

01:35:28.120 Yeah, it's called propaganda.

01:35:29.760 We will be greeted.

01:35:30.340 Propaganda by who?

01:35:30.800 That's what we will be greeted as liberators means.

01:35:33.460 It means, no, you will not.

01:35:35.840 You are not going to bomb a foreign country in any capacity, be it industrial control systems or missile sites, and have the civilian population of the country cheer for you.

01:35:44.000 I just, Tim, I wish I could literally just call up people right now and be like, talk to him, Tim Pool, Iranians.

01:35:49.900 I wish I could bring...

01:35:50.700 What does that mean?

01:35:51.600 What does that mean?

01:35:52.600 I wish that, because they could tell you what they are hearing from people on the ground in Iran, or they are on the ground in Iran.

01:35:59.860 Do you understand the concern, though?

01:36:01.800 I am disinterested in magical logic based on anecdotal statements.

01:36:06.580 There is a simple logic to all of this, and that is, if you're actually trying to convince people that a nation will overwhelmingly support the country bombing them, that is an absurdity.

01:36:18.000 You might as well say the sky is purple.

01:36:20.000 Like, sometimes it is, I guess, but no, people know it's not.

01:36:22.800 But it is, but, like, it is true that, like, right away, Iraq, the Iraqi people were like, yay, Americans are liberators. 0.99

01:36:31.760 And then within a year, it was like, oh, shit, they really fucked this up. 0.95

01:36:35.160 So it is possible that it is possible... 0.99

01:36:38.720 I don't know that it was ever that widespread.

01:36:41.920 Well, maybe it wasn't as widespread.

01:36:43.360 I mean, you're talking about Arabs versus Persians. 0.90

01:36:45.080 Again, a very different people.

01:36:46.120 You know, if there's a civil war, like, if we're talking about, like, the North and South Vietnamese or, like, the Koreas, and you said we'll be greeted as liberators, it's like, yes, by one of the warring factions.

01:36:56.100 But Iran is not that.

01:36:59.000 Iran is not what? 0.62

01:36:59.980 In civil war.

01:37:03.080 There doesn't exist pre-existing domestic tensions of which we could take advantage.

01:37:07.620 But, Tim, you have to be caught in order to say something like that, you have to understand, like, the ethnic makeup of the country.

01:37:16.160 And you have to understand the position of, like, the different ethnic groups, like the Kurds and the Turkic tribes and the Awazi Arabs and the Azeris.

01:37:25.240 Like, you have to understand the positions that they have taken since Israel stopped, started dropping bombs.

01:37:32.680 A lot of these ethnic minorities, they have, you know, their councils and their spokespeople and stuff like that of this institution and this institution.

01:37:42.060 And a lot of them have put out statements in full support of what Israel is doing.

01:37:49.460 There's a difference between that and, like, taking up blocking positions to prevent the IRGC from counterattacking Fordow and the Israelis land.

01:37:58.980 I agree with you.

01:37:59.420 The point stands.

01:38:00.820 I agree with you.

01:38:01.620 You know, the combat power of the Iranian military is in the hands of people dedicated, as you say, to Israel's destruction. 0.71

01:38:09.880 Fair point.

01:38:10.580 I imagine if, like, Chinese communists were landing at, like, Martinsburg Regional Airport and bombing, which is an Air Force base, or it's a national, it's an Air National Guard.

01:38:20.920 Imagine if they, like, communist China, they bombed it, landed a plane there, and a bunch of dudes walked out. 0.94

01:38:26.320 I bet there'd be a bunch of leftists cheering for them.

01:38:28.280 Yeah, they'd be sitting there with signs being like, liberate us.

01:38:33.160 Please, bring communism.

01:38:35.920 Okay.

01:38:36.180 I would, sure.

01:38:37.820 The point, you know, in this, again, this is why I think people are suspicious, is we're trying to make the same case that we can analyze a Middle Eastern country, you know, Southwest Asian country, in order to achieve and support military and geopolitical aims that are inherently unpredictable.

01:39:01.520 It's the discourse surrounding the case for intervention, to me, is based on a little bit of hubris around guessing what will happen in a world where we can't assume nor guess what will happen.

01:39:18.480 I think you're right, and I think I could fall prey to that as well, for sure.

01:39:22.320 But I think that the other side of that is there's also a possibility that you don't have hubris and that you're actually just making calculated cost-benefit analysis, you know, or, like, risk-benefit, you know, calculations.

01:39:38.100 And deciding that it's worth it, that the possible risk of, like, A, B, and C happening is worth it, is worth it for, you know, to stop the possibility of X, Y, and Z.

01:39:50.120 But the people who bear the consequences of decision-makers being wrong about that are going to be at least one generation of American and Israeli men who spend their 20s in this country, perhaps.

01:40:04.520 I just—I just—that's what happened to us already. It's—I mean, I was on the tail end of it, but it kind of defines my life, and a lot—and so we—

01:40:14.840 But, Will, maybe you're—but this is not—but this is a very—but not every situation is a rock. This is just a very different situation.

01:40:21.880 No. You're right. It is different.

01:40:24.000 And I think people are traumatized by that, and so I think a lot of people are projecting.

01:40:27.340 I mean, I think that's the definition of fear-mongering, right? Fear-mongering about World War III or about that this is just going to be, like, another—a rock.

01:40:34.020 I don't think you're doing this because I think you actually have some, like, thoughtful, nuanced analysis, but I think a lot of the voices that are screaming about that on social media, like, that is the definition of fear-mongering.

01:40:43.880 It's essentially—

01:40:44.440 Like, claiming Iran will get a nuke and start nuking people?

01:40:47.360 They're—they're—

01:40:48.300 Huh?

01:40:50.600 It's fear-mongering to claim that Iran will get a nuclear weapon and use it.

01:40:53.200 No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying—I'm saying that people screaming about World War III and—

01:40:58.980 Right, like, if Iran got a nuke and started nuking people, it would start World War III, right? 0.97

01:41:02.880 Right. Or—or, no, just that if there was—

01:41:05.480 It wouldn't start World War III.

01:41:06.120 No, just there—like, look at Tucker Carlson's assessment from, like, a few weeks ago.

01:41:10.360 If—he said it very clearly—the first week of war with Iran, the first week, not America's war, but just war, any strike.

01:41:21.700 Wasn't he talking about U.S. involvement, though?

01:41:23.880 Thousands. Thousands. He just—he was—I remember reading the newsletter and seeing that—or the post or whatever, and it was just, like, the first week of war with Iran, right?

01:41:33.620 A war with Iran, that this would be catastrophic—that this would be so catastrophic that our economy would be destroyed. 0.99

01:41:40.500 We'd have $30, $40 gasoline. Thousands of American troops would die within the first week.

01:41:47.460 Like, well, now we do have—

01:41:49.200 For a ground intervention, right?

01:41:50.560 The first—no, no, strikes. Now we do have war. Now we do have war with Iran. It was coordinated with Trump, as he said. I'm prepared to trust our president.

01:42:00.500 It's all based on fear-mongering.

01:42:01.000 He's been the most transparent president, right? And none of that has happened.

01:42:05.500 It's all based on fear-mongering.

01:42:06.620 That's my point. That's all fear-mongering because we've been so traumatized by what's happening.

01:42:12.220 No, saying that kind of stuff is fear-mongering.

01:42:13.680 You keep saying World War III is going to start unless we invade.

01:42:16.020 No, no. I've never said that.

01:42:18.160 Well, but you have said that they're—

01:42:19.480 You said Iran would nuke trade routes and all these other things immediately if they got a nuclear weapon.

01:42:24.200 Trade routes?

01:42:25.320 Yes.

01:42:25.620 No, no, no. That's not what I said. I said the insurance costs and the risk models would change drastically.

01:42:30.120 And I asked you specifically, will Iran use a nuclear weapon if they get it?

01:42:33.880 And I—against Israel?

01:42:35.860 I believe yes.

01:42:36.760 Okay, will that trigger a mad response?

01:42:40.460 Mutually sure to destroy.

01:42:42.280 You mean like an arms race and all that kind of stuff?

01:42:44.480 Like, does anyone in the world anywhere retaliate against Iran if they nuke Israel? 0.85

01:42:49.220 Oh.

01:42:50.380 Well, yeah.

01:42:50.920 But to me, the World War III—but I've never once said that any—I've never said the words

01:42:57.020 World War III except in the context of other people talking about it.

01:43:00.840 So your point is Israel will get turned to glass by a nuclear bomb and Western powers will 0.87

01:43:05.540 go, well, I guess Israel's gone. 0.90

01:43:08.260 No, I think that—

01:43:09.360 Oh, you think the West will be like, we're going to destroy Iran now?

01:43:11.800 Yeah, I think that would start a global war. 0.72

01:43:14.080 But I don't think—

01:43:14.540 Oh, so World War III.

01:43:15.400 But I don't think—but Tim, these are two different scenarios.

01:43:19.960 What we're doing now is preventing that from happening.

01:43:24.220 Right, you are fear-mongering people telling them, unless we strike Iran, there will be

01:43:31.140 a global war.

01:43:32.080 That's what you said.

01:43:33.200 Well, no.

01:43:33.900 That is called fear-mongering.

01:43:35.020 Well, I believe that whether or not Iran has nukes, they are still a national security

01:43:41.820 threat to the United States based on what already has happened.

01:43:45.380 Right, so are they going to get a nuke if we do nothing?

01:43:48.980 If America does nothing or if Israel does nothing? 0.54

01:43:51.380 If we just leave them alone, do they get a nuke?

01:43:52.600 I believe they are.

01:43:54.360 And then they're going to use it, right?

01:43:55.520 Yes.

01:43:55.920 And they will nuke Israel? 0.97

01:43:57.280 They've said they will.

01:43:58.300 Do you believe them?

01:43:59.140 Do you believe they will?

01:44:00.020 I believe them.

01:44:00.980 I've listened to them.

01:44:01.700 Okay, and then there will be a response from the West on Iran, which will lead to a global 0.65

01:44:05.020 war, right?

01:44:05.540 Okay, but Tim, I'm not sitting here saying, I'm not going online or on podcasts or on

01:44:12.340 the news saying, like you asked me right at the beginning, what should America do?

01:44:16.920 I said, it depends how things play out.

01:44:18.640 If I was fear-mongering, then what I would have been doing is been coming onto your show

01:44:23.260 and being like, we have to strike Iran.

01:44:26.420 That's the only option.

01:44:27.500 But you did come on the show and say that Iran has thousands of proxies in the United

01:44:32.240 States waiting and ready to strike at any point.

01:44:34.640 I didn't say thousands.

01:44:35.660 I said hundreds.

01:44:37.400 Okay.

01:44:39.100 Dozens.

01:44:39.760 Some say hundreds.

01:44:40.420 You cast Iran as this global threat working every-

01:44:45.300 No doubt.

01:44:45.840 Right.

01:44:46.160 No doubt they are.

01:44:46.940 Which I think leads people to define this as fear-mongering.

01:44:51.200 If anybody has just been looking, okay, there are the, I am looking at the past, not the

01:44:57.800 future.

01:44:58.340 I'm looking at what they have done in the past.

01:45:01.120 Already, people who are fear-mongering are talking about things that could happen in the

01:45:05.900 future.

01:45:06.540 Like you.

01:45:06.740 I'm only talking about things that we know has already happened.

01:45:10.160 And that is, and that, and that is what we should expect.

01:45:12.680 What Iranian proxy groups exist in the United States that have killed Americans?

01:45:15.020 Who has Iran nuked already? 0.62

01:45:16.400 I'm talking about the sleeper cells in the United States.

01:45:19.020 But who has Iran nuked?

01:45:19.800 That already exists.

01:45:20.740 We know they exist.

01:45:22.300 Who have they nuked?

01:45:24.560 They're different.

01:45:26.180 They, what are you talking about?

01:45:27.700 You said you're not talking about what they're going to do, what they've already done.

01:45:30.860 And I said, who have they nuked?

01:45:32.420 You said they will nuke Israel and that you're not talking about things-

01:45:35.660 I believe that they will nuke Israel. 1.00

01:45:36.940 So you're talking about things they might do, not things they've already done.

01:45:39.100 Okay.

01:45:39.700 So your argument is that by me saying that they might nuke Israel and we have to-

01:45:44.480 Yeah, they will.

01:45:44.960 And we have, yeah, I believe they will.

01:45:46.560 So don't say might, say will.

01:45:47.600 Is there a possibility that they won't?

01:45:52.360 Of course.

01:45:53.340 Depending on how things play out.

01:45:55.240 Especially now.

01:45:57.340 But of course there's a possibility.

01:45:58.460 These are important distinctions.

01:45:59.480 Of course there's a possibility.

01:46:00.600 I believe that they will, based on all of my research and based, you know, based on-

01:46:06.760 My point is-

01:46:07.840 So are you saying that that is fear-mongering?

01:46:11.380 The issue is that you are, these are straw man arguments that you are excluding yourself

01:46:16.500 from your own disdain.

01:46:18.040 You're saying they are claiming bad thing will happen while you are also claiming bad thing

01:46:22.640 will happen.

01:46:23.180 I don't care if it's right or wrong.

01:46:24.580 The issue is stop-

01:46:26.300 It's like willfully obtuse.

01:46:27.900 Like you don't realize you're telling people World War III is around the corner unless we

01:46:31.480 do something.

01:46:32.240 Then you're accusing other people of fear-mongering.

01:46:34.220 Okay, so you're essentially saying that both camps, people who would potentially support

01:46:40.480 intervention and people who never support intervention, are saying that there's going

01:46:44.640 to be World War III, both of them, and so they're both fear-mongering?

01:46:47.860 You said people like Tucker are fear-mongering by claiming that if we get into war, thousands

01:46:52.320 of soldiers will die.

01:46:53.720 And I said, but you're claiming World War III will happen if we don't.

01:46:57.080 How is that not also fear-mongering?

01:46:58.640 Okay, that is, I'll tell you how it's different.

01:47:01.280 Me saying that I believe that Iran will use a nuke at some point when they have a nuke 0.98

01:47:06.860 against Israel based on the fact that they've said this is so different than saying in the

01:47:12.940 first week that we have an Iran war, thousands of Americans will die.

01:47:16.540 Our economy will collapse.

01:47:18.140 Gasoline will be $30.

01:47:22.380 One of them is laying out a specific scenario that they are certain of based on proof and evidence

01:47:31.100 that they clearly do not have, but they are trying to convince you of.

01:47:34.680 And another, and another, and another one is saying that based on what these people have

01:47:39.580 said, I believe that a general situation could arise that is a direct causation between having

01:47:47.320 a nuclear bomb and using a nuclear bomb.

01:47:49.820 The same thing.

01:47:50.300 Those are like, those are connected.

01:47:51.960 They're trying to do the same thing.

01:47:53.400 So, for one, we can argue.

01:47:55.680 One to me is making incredible, is associating things that you're trying to, you're trying

01:48:03.720 to take two things and you're associating them with nothing in the middle that's connecting

01:48:07.640 them.

01:48:07.980 And the other thing is, is making a possibility based on an association that everybody would

01:48:14.340 understand.

01:48:14.720 In world war, are economies in shambles?

01:48:17.900 Are they disrupted?

01:48:19.840 The answer is yes.

01:48:20.580 Well, sure, but it's right.

01:48:21.160 Soldiers die?

01:48:21.700 The answer is yes.

01:48:22.680 Okay.

01:48:23.060 We also have-

01:48:24.080 Will, but even Will would agree with me that it's a ridiculous assessment to say that in

01:48:28.260 the first week of a strike on Iran, our economy would collapse.

01:48:32.340 Is that what he said?

01:48:32.820 Just a strike?

01:48:34.020 Yes.

01:48:34.980 I don't think it's ridiculous to say that in the first weeks of a US-Iran war, thousands

01:48:40.360 of soldiers could die.

01:48:41.840 We have-

01:48:42.560 Why don't you look it up?

01:48:43.240 We have a very recent historical example of what we thought would be a fast, limited

01:48:49.620 military intervention growing into a quagmire that distracted US national security priorities

01:48:58.140 and got a lot of Americans killed.

01:49:00.080 We're not just associating everything that happens in the Middle East with the war in

01:49:04.120 Iraq.

01:49:04.960 We're, I think, drawing some reasonable conclusions about what happens when we think we have the

01:49:11.100 event, the chain of eventuality.

01:49:12.640 Well, I-

01:49:13.640 He didn't give a timeline.

01:49:14.740 He said thousands of Americans would die.

01:49:16.440 We'd lose the-

01:49:17.140 This isn't the one I'm talking about.

01:49:17.960 Okay.

01:49:18.240 Then I don't know what you're saying like-

01:49:19.860 It might have been on his newsletter.

01:49:20.760 I can't remember if it was a long poster on the newsletter.

01:49:24.200 I'm sure if you just Google like Tucker $30 gasoline or $40 gasoline or something,

01:49:30.100 it'll come up.

01:49:31.020 Or maybe not because it's a newsletter, but I'm sure somebody posted the newsletter.

01:49:33.400 I mean, the price of oil was going up-

01:49:35.680 Yeah, and then it dropped.

01:49:36.680 Before yesterday.

01:49:37.580 Right.

01:49:38.020 When Trump said that there would be a-

01:49:40.200 Look, the difference is, but the difference is, well, I'm not saying that we shouldn't

01:49:43.800 consider those quagmires in the past, but the difference is-

01:49:48.900 Let me, let me, let me, sorry, just let me read it.

01:49:50.300 A few days ago, Tucker Carlson predicted what would happen after a strike on Iran's

01:49:53.020 nuclear facilities.

01:49:54.280 Thousands of Americans killed in the first week, collapse of our economy, $30 gasoline,

01:49:58.120 then a world war where China and all of BRICS joins in to support them, writing,

01:50:02.920 And then there's the question of the war itself.

01:50:04.480 Iran may not have nukes, but it has a fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles, many of which

01:50:08.000 are aimed at U.S. military installations in the Gulf, as well as at our allies at a critical

01:50:11.760 energy infrastructure.

01:50:13.220 The first week of war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans.

01:50:16.200 It could also collapse our economy as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation.

01:50:21.600 Consider the effects of gasoline.

01:50:22.820 Oh, he said could several times, just like you.

01:50:27.320 And like, who cares if it's in the first week or the fifth week?

01:50:30.820 Okay.

01:50:31.080 This happening is a real possibility and a bad thing.

01:50:34.180 Okay.

01:50:34.540 Okay.

01:50:34.840 You're right.

01:50:35.180 No, you're right.

01:50:35.640 He said it could.

01:50:36.960 He didn't say it will.

01:50:38.220 You're absolutely right.

01:50:39.400 Could to easily kill thousands of Americans. 0.99

01:50:43.020 Okay. 0.99

01:50:44.180 I stand corrected.

01:50:46.200 Um, and, and I want to clarify, I'm not saying your point about Iran nuking Israel is wrong.

01:50:52.620 I was only taking issue with you saying one side was using fear and the other side was

01:50:56.200 not.

01:50:56.500 Well, I just think that there's certain, Tim, I think that there's certain like slogans that

01:51:00.940 are very trendy now to use.

01:51:03.340 And I don't think that they're based on honest assessments.

01:51:07.360 And I think like world war three, like is one, I think I'm not dying for Israel is another 1.00

01:51:13.180 one.

01:51:13.540 And I think, you know, regime change is another one.

01:51:16.340 These are words.

01:51:17.060 But those are strong ants that I don't, they've just, no, well, I'm, I'm not saying you're

01:51:20.460 doing this and obviously we need to consider, um, we need to talk about regime change and

01:51:24.240 all that kind of stuff.

01:51:24.840 But like people are now redefining regime, the way that they're using these words like

01:51:29.020 regime change.

01:51:29.720 They're, they're, they're basically saying that now like any military action that results

01:51:36.200 in a different government is now like regime change.

01:51:39.880 You know what I mean?

01:51:40.240 Like they're, what's the opposite of fear mongering?

01:51:43.680 Calm mongering.

01:51:44.480 I'm going to call him monger guys. 1.00

01:51:46.380 If we, whether it's Pollyannish, whether we strike Iran or not, literally nothing ever 0.88

01:51:51.360 happens.

01:51:52.520 Well, that was, I think Michael Knowles tweeted the other day, he just had a tweet and it

01:51:56.140 just said so many panicans.

01:51:58.060 This is great.

01:51:59.240 Nothing will ever happen.

01:52:00.420 Well, I, I, I hear a lot of people kind of urge, urge folks.

01:52:04.380 I think they're talking about perhaps people like me who, who don't necessarily, who want

01:52:09.640 us to think long and hard about military, U S military intervention.

01:52:13.240 I don't, I don't think it's panicking to lay out the risks of U S military action in this

01:52:21.160 conflict.

01:52:21.800 It's not, it's not.

01:52:23.020 I don't, I don't think Michael Knowles is, I just think these slogans are being used in

01:52:27.080 much, in much the way, in a hysterical way that we often mock the left for.

01:52:31.620 I don't, I don't think World War three will happen if we bunker bust, uh, Iran. 1.00

01:52:36.360 I, I, I, I don't think airstrikes will lead to an expanded war because I don't see anybody

01:52:41.460 wanting to, China's not going to arrest Beijing over, over Fordo.

01:52:46.740 No way.

01:52:47.200 They'll be mad.

01:52:47.860 There'll be repercussions, but I don't see it escalating.

01:52:49.740 There was a lot of people in conversations on Tucker's show and Candace's show and stuff

01:52:53.540 like that, that we're talking about how Russia would defend Iran.

01:52:57.480 And I'm sitting there listening and I'm like, are you guys in?

01:53:01.380 Don't you think though, that if, if Russia saw the United States, let's say, uh, the 0.67

01:53:07.940 Guardian was right.

01:53:08.780 And we do drop a tactical nuclear weapon on Fordo.

01:53:13.180 I mean, there is no doubt in my mind that Russia has the, I don't know if they have the 1.00

01:53:19.340 justification, but in their mind, they have the logical justification to use a tactical

01:53:23.340 nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

01:53:25.400 I don't, I don't think that's a very good possibility, but you guys are bringing scenarios.

01:53:30.240 You guys are talking about scenario, like we started this whole conversation talking about

01:53:33.920 a scenario that in my mind was not the, one of the scenarios that I was thinking in terms

01:53:40.660 of people talking about World War III.

01:53:43.100 Do you know what I mean?

01:53:43.620 Like it wasn't tactical nukes.

01:53:45.600 It wasn't, it was a, it was a, it was using bunker busting bombs or maybe a commando raid

01:53:50.300 or maybe Israel using their own bombs.

01:53:52.780 It wasn't actually dropping a nuke on, on Fordo.

01:53:57.820 Right.

01:53:58.300 Um, I think that things like that have, there's a different order of magnitude in terms of

01:54:03.360 the consequences for our enemies and for our allies.

01:54:06.680 And I think if, like Tim said, if it's, if it's just a strike or bunker busting bombs, 0.96

01:54:12.420 I think anybody who says that Russia would get involved over that is just so ignorant

01:54:18.640 about, you know, the bandwidth that Russia can handle right now.

01:54:21.780 And also Russia's relationship with Iran or Russia just said yesterday, they just said,

01:54:26.080 sorry, we're not even going to hide you.

01:54:28.420 We're not even going to provide, provide you safe passage.

01:54:31.120 And then the Ayatollahs came out and they're like, we're never going to forget this. 0.97

01:54:35.260 I think, um, mutually assured destruction has been twisted beyond its original meaning.

01:54:40.080 And I don't believe it currently exists necessarily.

01:54:42.140 Uh, mutually assured destruction was largely in reference to the, the, the Soviet Union

01:54:47.240 and the United States.

01:54:48.160 And that if either fired nukes on each other, it would cause just every ICBM flying through

01:54:53.460 the air.

01:54:53.760 If the U.S. were to nuke Iran at, at Fordow specifically, I don't believe Russia would

01:55:00.900 fire a nuke in Ukraine.

01:55:02.080 I think Russia would fire a nuke in Ukraine if they felt it would give them an advantage 0.76

01:55:05.800 even right now.

01:55:07.220 The idea that a nation would sacrifice its capital for some other nation, particularly 0.98

01:55:12.580 Iran, I think is, is silly. 1.00

01:55:14.520 I don't believe they would either, but I think that there is, I think that depending on when 0.91

01:55:18.020 it happened and where Russia was in Ukraine, I think that could change their assessment.

01:55:23.200 I think there's nothing stopping from Russia, stopping Russia from using nukes right now. 0.75

01:55:28.220 I, I, there, no, no, no, no one in Europe or the United States is going to be like time

01:55:32.120 to go nuke Moscow because they bombed a battlefield or a rural area of Ukraine.

01:55:37.540 It's just not going to happen.

01:55:38.400 I, I agree with you, but that doesn't, I, I don't, I think you're still undercounting the,

01:55:43.020 the justification Russia would see to ratchet up.

01:55:47.220 Will saying essentially that Russia.

01:55:49.540 Weapons that they feel comfortable using in Ukraine.

01:55:51.620 Yeah, Will saying that essentially Russia would be able to say to the world that even 0.55

01:55:57.040 though like they don't, even though they don't really care what the world thinks of

01:55:59.680 them, they would, they know that in that case they could get away with it.

01:56:04.040 And it's largely, I agree.

01:56:05.560 It's largely about what trade they can maintain because what does global image really matter

01:56:10.040 to a country at war?

01:56:11.100 Russia needs supplies.

01:56:13.600 And if they're seen as the first actor in a nuclear strike, they may get supplies cut

01:56:17.840 off even from China.

01:56:19.060 But no, then I would agree to a certain extent that there's a probability, should the US use

01:56:23.340 a nuke, Russia might be like, don't look at us. 0.99

01:56:25.140 We didn't start this.

01:56:26.460 But I, I don't, I don't imagine a scenario that makes sense where, you know, we nuke Iran 1.00

01:56:30.600 and then Russia is like, ah, and then they fire on Ukraine and then Pakistan start firing

01:56:34.980 at each other.

01:56:35.680 Right, right, right.

01:56:36.480 But that's, right, right.

01:56:37.500 But it would, but, but that's not how world wars usually work.

01:56:41.520 They are usually, they, they, they, there are usually periods where they're just, you

01:56:45.760 know, they're little regional wars and, uh, and there's just conflicts going on in all

01:56:51.060 these different areas, but they have been brought about because of some sort of action

01:56:54.780 in a totally different region.

01:56:56.140 You know what?

01:56:56.420 I'm, I'm done arguing.

01:56:57.260 I'm just, I'm, I'm pro nuclear war now. 0.91

01:56:59.520 I'm done with all the arguments.

01:57:00.740 Everybody should just fire all the nukes now because it's the argument I can't stand.

01:57:04.920 There you go.

01:57:05.440 And then we can live like it's fallout, you know, you guys see that show on Amazon?

01:57:08.500 It was pretty good.

01:57:09.280 What show?

01:57:10.120 Fallout.

01:57:12.300 It's a video game, but they made a TV show.

01:57:14.420 Life after a nuclear apocalypse.

01:57:15.980 Start digging.

01:57:16.680 Yeah.

01:57:16.820 We can all go live in bunkers.

01:57:19.020 So interestingly, this, the subway system in Ukraine is like 300 feet underground.

01:57:24.380 Oh, just perfect.

01:57:25.620 Because the Soviets built it, right? 0.91

01:57:26.920 And because, because of fear of nuclear war, man, you've got to go down so many escalators.

01:57:31.600 It's crazy.

01:57:32.280 Oh my gosh.

01:57:32.660 How long does that take?

01:57:34.360 To get down there?

01:57:35.380 Yeah.

01:57:35.820 No, it's not long.

01:57:36.480 It's just like five escalators.

01:57:38.540 So it's, it's like two or three minutes.

01:57:39.960 Oh yeah.

01:57:40.380 Oh, but it's like five full escalators.

01:57:42.440 Yeah.

01:57:42.640 Yeah.

01:57:42.760 But, but that's, I guess, I guess, right.

01:57:44.800 It's not a lot of time, but it is like, if you think about taking five escalators down to

01:57:49.440 get to the subway, that is like a ton of escalators.

01:57:51.920 Yeah.

01:57:52.220 It's a few minutes where it's like in New York, you run on the stairs in 30 seconds, you're

01:57:55.800 there, that's pretty wild.

01:57:57.820 Yeah.

01:57:58.040 And they're beautiful too.

01:57:59.580 Not all of them, but they're like, they, they take care of their subways.

01:58:03.080 They make them look fancy.

01:58:04.000 You've been there?

01:58:04.620 Are you saying you want to move to Ukraine?

01:58:05.860 You know, I did, I actually considered it back in like 2014 or 15 because of how cheap it

01:58:10.940 is to live there and the time zone and the, the, like the news reporting, I was doing field

01:58:15.780 work on the ground, but.

01:58:17.880 It's why a lot of American tech companies had software developers in Ukraine.

01:58:21.740 Yeah.

01:58:21.880 Because you pay them 60, $70,000 a year and they're Kings.

01:58:24.480 Yep.

01:58:25.140 And then there you go.

01:58:26.100 Oh, interesting.

01:58:26.960 Yeah.

01:58:27.520 Well, we're about rounding things out.

01:58:29.060 This has been a lot of fun.

01:58:29.880 Uh, do you want to, any final thoughts or where people can find you?

01:58:33.280 Uh, I'm pretty active on X.

01:58:34.960 It's just my last name and my first name switched.

01:58:38.600 So at Ray Akaris and yeah, that's basically it.

01:58:42.640 All right on.

01:58:43.140 Thanks for having me.

01:58:44.180 Yeah.

01:58:44.720 Yeah.

01:58:44.940 Thank you to both of you.

01:58:46.860 Um, I'm at William Tebow on X.

01:58:49.620 Check out the Claremont Institute and, uh, you know, think about how things can change in

01:58:56.160 the next few weeks.

01:58:57.620 Yeah.

01:58:58.020 I'm hoping this is a big ask Trump gets under the table and shuts it all down.

01:59:01.400 I hope it doesn't.

01:59:02.240 But, but I, I, I'm actually thinking based on the news that we're heading towards some

01:59:05.020 kind of U S strike.

01:59:05.900 So we'll see, but my friends, we're going to be sending you off to hang out with our

01:59:08.860 friend, Jeremy Hambly over the quarter ring.

01:59:10.760 So don't forget to smash that like button, share the show with everyone.

01:59:13.500 You know, we'll be back tonight at 8 PM for Tim cast IRL.

01:59:17.520 And maybe there'll be some news developments or maybe it'll be a goofy Friday because there

01:59:21.500 is no news and we're just going to, you know, hang out and have fun.

01:59:23.960 So, uh, you can follow me on X and Instagram at Tim cast.

01:59:26.540 Once again, share the show with everyone, you know,

01:59:28.020 and we will see you all tonight.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - June 20, 2025

U.S. Says NUKING IRAN Is The Only Option, Should The US Intervene？ w⧸ Karys Rhea & Will Thibeau

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Summary

Transcript

The Culture War - Tim Pool - June 20, 2025

U.S. Says NUKING IRAN Is The Only Option, Should The US Intervene？ w⧸ Karys Rhea &#x26; Will Thibeau

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

U.S. Says NUKING IRAN Is The Only Option, Should The US Intervene？ w⧸ Karys Rhea & Will Thibeau